Aquarium Volunteer Senior Project

  5-24-22 I arrived at the aquarium this morning and started out by cleaning the small invertebrates tank. It didn’t need to be cleaned that badly but as the busy season starts they clean when they get the opportunity. We have a missing pufferfish in the large invertebrate tank so I looked for him for a while. I couldn't find him. The staff thinks he's sick and hiding in one of the holes, but I honestly think someone stole him because I looked so well and he is just not in that tank. I then helped Brittany clean all of the reptile water and food bowls and then refilled them. I made some salad and a powder mix of dried fruits for the reptiles. We also cleaned some of the enclosures. After lunch, I dove and scrubbed all the algae in one of the big tanks for a few hours.  Total hours: 74

  5-23-22  Today I was in the aviary again with the birds keeping an eye on the people who came in. In the morning I gave them water, and Sam had already fed them so I cleaned the dishes. I also put shavings in one of the boxes and then set up the nectar and cups in a cooler to give to people who paid.Today was pretty similar to the other days I’ve been in here. There were a lot of people who came in with tickets for feedings so I helped them out and showed them how to not get bitten. I also answered questions for a lot of the school groups. Whenever the birds were hungry we gave them some more food. We cleaned the turtle's enclosure by adding some more sand and wood shavings and replacing the water. Near the end of the day there weren't many people coming in so I tried teaching the birds some of their names and other words which didn’t go very well. The day went by pretty fast and I finished up around 4:30.

  Weekend reflection #2 5-22-22 This week I learned a bit more about what an aquarist does and different aspects of animal care from more of a long-term perspective. We had a few fish pass, as well as one of the oldest birds, so I learned about what happens to those animals after the fact, and how the environment they’re in is affected. I learned a lot about nutrition in a more in-depth manner, specifically about the reptiles. Last week I had a brief overview of the water system but this week Brittany walked me through it and had me do the backwashing for a lot of the tanks. She also taught me how salt water is made and showed that process. I enjoyed this week a bit more, because it was more hands-on and because I had a deeper understanding of mechanisms and life in the aquarium, they gave me bigger responsibilities. I spent a lot of time in the tanks with the marine life which was a pretty unique experience. The days the aquarium was open were pretty long because I was doing the s...

  5-20-22 The aquarium was open today so I was with the birds working with another animal care employee. We had a meeting at the start of the day going over what everyone’s jobs were. I cut up some lettuce and carrots and mixed the nectar for the birds and placed it out for them. When people started coming in we watched to make sure they weren’t messing with the birds, which a surprising amount of people did. Some people had tickets for feedings, so I gave them cups of nectar and showed them how to feed. There were quite a few young school groups that came in. At the end of the day, I cleaned up all the food bowls, washed them, and then headed home. 

  5-19-22 I started out the morning by helping Britney feed all the reptiles. There was one frog who was super stubborn and wouldn’t eat so Brittany had to hold him for a while and try and get his mouth open. There’s also a snake who has been having a hard time eating so they’re getting ready to bring him to the vet. We made more saltwater just by dumping a bunch of boxes of salt into a whole lot of water. It took a while for all of it to mix in but after it did we backwashed the sharks and some of the saltwater fish tanks. We then did it to the freshwater fish by draining some of the tank and refilling it with new water to reset the nitrate levels. It’s required that there’s someone present while anyone’s inside the water so I watched Brittany clean the trout tank. After I cleaned the food prep room and was done. 

  5-18-22 Another cleaning day today! I got to the aquarium and while Brittany prepared food by cutting up fish and veggies, I scrubbed down the shark tank and another fish tank. Most of the sharks were sleeping but there was one who kept getting a little too close to me which was unsettling. The fish tank I cleaned is those nibbler fish you see in spas that eat all the dead skin off feet, so they were coming at my legs the whole time. When I was done I helped Brittany hand out food to everybody. While doing so we checked on the starfish who has wastings which is a bacteria that eats their flesh. We put it in a different tank and clean it daily with freshwater so its legs can regrow. After lunch Brittany and I cleaned the rays tank which was so cool because they swam right next to us the whole time. We scrubbed algae off rocks and moved the sand around to make it more even. Then I watched her do otter training and we were done for the day. 

5-17-22 Today we started by feeding all the fresh and saltwater aquatic life. The woman I was working with fed them fish while I did the dry food. While I was feeding them I looked out for any fish that wasn’t eating, and the smaller fish that weren’t able to get some of the food into their mouth. I cleaned the invertebrate tank after, by scrubbing all the algae off the rocks And fake corals. After lunch, I cleaned our biggest tank which took about two hours. It hadn’t been cleaned in a week and a half so there was a lot of algae. Normally there are two divers cleaning but one of our regulators is broken so it took a while. I finished up by cleaning the brushes and suit. Time today: 5 Total: 32.5

  5-16-22 The aquarium was open today so my mentor had me get a glimpse of what the educational ambassadors do on the floor. We started out with a meeting, and then I tagged along on a tour with two new employees who are training to work as E A’s. The aquarium's main goal is to educate people and make the experience as immersive as possible, so the E A’s give talks at each of the tanks and also do separate ones about different topics like climate change and invasive species. We went around to each tank and learned about what’s in them and what to say to guests. I then listened to an invasive species talk for a while. While I won’t be doing any of this myself, they wanted to give me a look into different roles around the aquarium. Afterward, someone showed me the baby guitar sharks that hatched yesterday. I helped feed some lorikeets for the last little bit of the day and headed home.  Hours Today: 5 Total: 27.5

  5-15-22 This week I learned about the role an aquarist plays around the aquarium and some of the basic upkeep and care for all the animals. I learned what the different species eat and how to prepare their food, the water filtration system and how the saltwater is made and stored, and all the maintenance that goes into things around the aquarium. For the most part, I enjoyed everything I was doing. It is a little bit more work than I expected but it’s a good time being around animals all day. I prefer the days when the aquarium was closed because the tasks weren’t as repetitive and there was something new to do every day. When the aquarium was open, it was a long day since I was doing the same thing the whole time. I’m honestly not sure what I was expecting going into this because I knew so little about how an aquarium is run, but there weren’t any huge surprises. There is a lot more that goes into it than I would’ve thought. Just the water system within itself is pretty complica...

   5-13-22 Today was the first day the aquarium was open. I went in at 9:30 and went to a meeting where they gave all the staff a rundown of the day. I was with the parakeets all day with another girl and we just looked out for people messing with them and made sure everything was good. Before people started coming in we prepped their food which was nectar and made sure all the birds got some. We also fed the turtles lettuce. We cleaned their enclosure by spraying and scrubbing everything down. We had a lot of big groups with kids come in and a lot of them would try and pick up the birds and turtles so we monitored that. We also handed out nectar to those who paid to feed them. There’s one bird who can’t fly very well so when there weren’t a lot of people we would train him by putting two perches across from each other and using food to get him to fly. Then we slowly spread them out. At the end of the day, we did a quick clean-up, picked up all the food and gave them water, an...

  10-12-22 The first thing I did when I got to the aquarium today was clean the invertebrates tank. I took all the starfish and urchins out and put them in a smaller bucket. I scrubbed off all the algae from the fake coral and rocks, and then we filled the tank back and put everything back in. After I watched one of the employees do a training with the otters by trying to get them to go into a crate and back out. I also cleaned a big grass mat that was in their enclosure. I ate lunch and when I came back another employee and I spent the afternoon cleaning one of the bigger fish tanks. One person dove at a time while the other watched just in case anything happened. She cleaned for about an hour and then we switched. I scrubbed the algae off everything, same as in the morning, but it was a lot easier since I was underwater and could see. We both rinsed off all our gear and headed home.  Hours today: 5 Hours total: 15.5

5-11-22 I got to the aquarium at 9 this morning and jumped right into feeding and prepping meals for tomorrow. I learned about the backwash and filtration system in the tanks and how they keep the water fresh and healthy for the fish. For about half the tanks, we emptied a quarter of the water and added new water to prevent nitrate build-up and ammonia. I went to lunch and when I came back I took one of the lizards outside for an hour to get some fresh air and sun which was fun. He tried to run away a few times though. I then learned about water salinity, pH, and nitrate. In the lab, we did some tests on the water, and the pH was low in one of the tanks so we corrected it. I got a brief intro to the holding tanks, how the saltwater is made, how they move water, and where the dirty water goes. I finished up the day by cleaning the food prep room and moving shark eggs that were laid into a different tank to be monitored.  Time today: 6 hours Time total: 10.5 hours

5-10-22 I arrived at the aquarium at 10:00 to finally meet my mentor Jamie. She gave me a brief orientation of the ins and outs of their business, and for the rest of the day, I shadowed one of the employees to get a feel for how everything is run. She gave me a tour of tanks and all the different sp ecies. To my surprise, there were just as many land animals as there were ocean which was fun. We then visited the animals in rehabilitation and I learned what was wrong with them and what was being done for them to recover. She explained and showed me all of the feeding procedures for morning and afternoon, and we spent an hour or so preparing and distributing food. We then gave all of the parakeets their weekly weighing to see how much they gained or lost, so we could determine how much to feed them. That took some time as some of them were much harder to get on the scale. We cleaned up, and I headed home for the day Hours today: 4.5 Hours total: 4.5

Today my mentor called out sick so I wasn't able to start working in the aquarium quite yet. I took the day to relax and see some family and friends. I woke up pretty late and went on a run that turned out to be all uphill, so it quickly turned into hiking. I ran down and some more on a woods trail, and went back home for lunch. I made some mac n cheese and a smoothie. After, I visited my Aunt for a few hours whom I hadn't seen in a while. I then went over to my friend's house for the night. We drove up to Cathedral Ledge in North Conway to watch the sunset, and we were the only ones up there which was super nice. We came home, watched a movie, ordered dinner, and called it a day.  Hours today: 0