A New Window to the Sea : Scripps Scurries to Finish and Stock Aquarium

Don has begun waking up at 2:30 a.m., panicked about catching more fish.

Bob is still looking for a few good rocks.

And Harvey hasn’t arrived.

The first two have eight days left to ready the new Stephen Birch Aquarium-Museum, a $14-million facility with a man-made tide pool--replete with small waves--and a spectacular panoramic view of the coast.

Harvey is blase.

The 100-pound grouper has not gotten into the swim of things. He’s still in his home at the old aquarium, which is about one-third the size of the new facility.

On Sept. 16, Scripps Institution of Oceanography will open the much-ballyhooed aquarium, which officials say is a dramatic leap forward from the existing one. The new UC San Diego facility will hold 1,500 more fish, 96,000 more gallons of seawater in display tanks, and feature a museum and an education center with two classrooms.

Walking through the corridors is a voyage through the waters and reefs of the Pacific Northwest, California, Mexico and the South Pacific, where Scripps scientists have launched research expeditions.

Each of the 33 tanks will offer a dazzling array of often brightly-colored and oddly-shaped fish, including the pink-red, cigar-shaped wrasses and the blue-green pointy-nosed filefish that look like they swam right out of a Dr. Seuss book. Then there is the sinister-looking but benign moray eels, and the venomous yellow and brown lionfish. Don’t forget to check out the live coral that wriggles with the current.

Sitting on a two-acre site a half mile above the La Jolla coastline at 2300 Expedition Way, the aquarium-museum is substantially larger and more glamorous than the old cramped Scripps aquarium, but this is no Sea World. Don’t expect people dressed as penguins to greet you. The mission of the Scripps facility is educational.

“Its purpose is to attract people who wish to learn more about the oceans,” said Donald Wilkie, aquarium director. “This is not designed to be a tourist attraction, though tourists will certainly be a portion of our visitors. But this is aimed more toward people with an interest in oceans and ocean research.”

The giant kelp forest is the dramatic centerpiece for the new facility. This 16-foot deep, 70,000-gallon tank sports a 21-by-13-foot acrylic viewing wall, which--weighing in at 10-tons--is one of the largest of its kind. Designers used underwater photographs to craft an exhibit that looks just like the area around La Jolla.

Artificial rock, composed of cement with carefully etched lines, imitates the underwater layered rock cliffs. Last week, the kelp forest was not fully planted but several long strands of kelp waved in the water. Soon vividly colored garibaldis, senoritas, sheepheads, giant black sea bass, and moray eels will call the tank home.

To fill this tank and others, Scripps divers are still foraging for likely candidates. In recent days, some divers have noticed baby fish gathering at the end of the pier.

“We joke that they are waiting for us to catch them so they can live their lives in the lap of luxury,” said Bob Snodgrass, an associate aquarium curator.

Meanwhile, Snodgrass is also looking for suitable algae-covered rocks for the tide pool, which is perched on an expansive veranda overlooking the sea.

“Only good rocks need apply,” Snodgrass said.

In full swing, the tide pool will be filled with mussels, starfish, surf grass (also known as eel grass) and zebra perch.

Workers had to tinker with the tide pool’s wave machine so it didn’t splash water over its edge. Now, it’s set so the 62-degree water reaches a quarter inch from the lip of the tank. Though you can sit on the edge of this pool, sticking your hands in the water is a no-no.

For almost a century, Scripps Institution of Oceanography has operated an aquarium. The current antiquated facility, in use for more than 40 years, closed its doors on Labor Day.

Most of the fish will be transported this week to their new homes. So for now, the aquarium has the feel of a place being readied for a party though the tables and chairs have not yet arrived.

How do you move a big fish?

“Very carefully,” said Snodgrass.

The fish must be kept in water the whole time. They must be carried in a container large enough so they won’t feel any lurching blows. While experts know that birds can get distressed by a new habitat, they don’t credit fish with the same emotional response.

“It’s really hard to say what’s in the mind of fish--mainly, its food,” Snodgrass said.

And no one was quite sure how all the fish would take to their new homes.

Walking past one of the tanks where some fish had already arrived, Wilkie paused and, sounding much like a concerned parent, he wagged his finger at one fish that was clearly crowding another.

“Oooh, there’s a little aggression here,” scolded Wilkie, who’s been with Scripps 26 years. “It’s not entirely predictable which fish will get along. Sometimes two fish want the same space and then you have conflict.”

But Wilkie believes that most of the fish will be much more comfortable in their new homes, which are consistently larger. In the old facility, the largest tank held 2,000 gallons of sea water. For a big fish like Harvey, that’s not a whole lot. In the new aquarium, the biggest is tank 19, which holds 50,000 gallons.

The red snappers, for instance, had been housed in a 400-gallon tank. When they were released in their new 18,000-gallon ‘Sharks & Snappers’ exhibit, they began acting as snappers in nature do: schooling together during the day and drifting apart to forage on their own at night.

But moving fish wasn’t the only chore that remained unfinished. A lot of little niggling details remained. The labels for the tanks were not finished. Tank 19 was still cloudy. Too much light was hitting the tank containing the flashlight fish.

Frenzy reigned in the expansive halls of the aquarium and museum last week as workers scurried to assemble a simulated submersible (a small submarine used for ocean research), paint the planets on a wall, and clean glue off the 33 Lucite windows of the tanks.

In Islotes Reef, angelfish--blue-black fish with one white bar and a yellow tail--dart through the water, threading their way among the moorish idol (yes, that’s a fish) and the butterflyfish, a yellow creature with a black nose. Once completed, this tank will hold about 150 fish from 25 different species.

“My greatest sense is one of anxiety: Are we going to get all this work done?” asked Wilkie, surveying the gaping areas in the museum intended to host exhibits that had not yet arrived. “You worry about the money. You worry about the construction. You worry about the exhibits. After it opens, you worry about attendance--you don’t want too much and you don’t want too little.”

In fact, during the first year, Scripps officials expect 500,000 visitors (or 150,000 more than the annual attendance at the old facility). They intentionally waited until after summer to open, hoping not to add traffic to the area streets that get clogged with beach-goers.

Although the aquarium won’t be open to the public until Sept. 16, the media, Scripps board members, and occasional dignitaries have quietly cruised the facility. Andre Previn, for instance, toured two weeks ago and then became a member. (No, he did not discuss the back-stabbing custody battle involving his ex-wife Mia Farrow and Woody Allen.)

And while many aquarium officials wouldn’t ordinarily mention parking, it has become a highly touted asset. The new facility has 264 spots--as opposed to the paltry nine meters at the old one, an attribute that long irritated visitors who often faced a roadside hike after parking blocks away.

Maybe it’s Jacques Cousteau. Or maybe the thrill is gone from zoos, and people have tired of craning their necks to look at star shows in planetariums. But aquariums are popping up everywhere. This year alone, aquariums opened in Chattanooga, Tenn.; Corpus Christi, Tex.; Camden, N.J., and Newport, Ore. Others are planned in Tampa, Fla.; Charleston, S.C.; and Cleveland.

At the Oregon Coast Aquarium, which opened May 23, officials expected to host 550,000 visitors in the first year. In three months, however, 462,000 guests toured the $24-million, 29-acre facility.

“Aquariums across the country are very successful. The public has a fascination now for what lives in the water, things that most people can’t see,” said Phyllis Bell, executive director of the Oregon Coast Aquarium. “Not too many people are going to don a diving suit and go under water. People have no idea what’s out there; they eat fish, but the variety of life beneath the water is just amazing.”

The relative success of the larger existing facilities like Monterey Bay Aquarium, some say, has spurred the growth of others.

“The successes have served as a model for other people looking for some kind of anchor for urban renewal or visitor-oriented focus,” said Steven Webster, director of education at Monterey, which has been open nine years and draws almost 2 million each year. “The fact is that aquariums are springing up all over like mushrooms and all are managing to draw pretty good audiences.”

At Scripps, officials first began discussing building a new aquarium in 1966, Wilkie said. But it was almost two decades before funding-raising began. Well-aware of the university’s budget constraints, officials knew the money would have to come from gifts and donations rather than taxpayers.

Scripps officials received a $6-million donation from the Delaware-based Stephen and Mary Birch Foundation. Slowly, more dollars trickled in and UCSD offered up a two-acre parcel, part of 172 acres of La Jolla purchased from the city in 1907 for $1,000. The site--with “the best view of any aquarium in the world,” according to Snodgrass--formerly housed a radio station that broadcast to ships.

Today, Snodgrass, Wilkie and teams of workers are on the homestretch. The drains have been fixed. Day after day, exhibits arrive that are plunked into place in the museum. Crates appear and disappear at a dizzying rate that would make Houdini proud.

“We’ve had a small aquarium here for many, many years and the local people have a feeling of ownership: they bring their visitors, their children, and their grandmothers. That little aquarium is going to be no more--it’s become this huge enterprise,” said Ed Frieman, director of Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

“On one hand we are pleased and proud. On the other, we see this huge thing there and say, ‘Oh my gosh, what have we done?’ It’s changed the way we think about the aquarium and the whole operation, changed something small and local to something that will become more regional. It will be a draw for people far and wide.”

But for now, never mind that. Bob needs a few good rocks.

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