21
February
2018
|
13:56
Asia/Muscat

The Lost Chambers Aquarium and The Ambassador Lagoon

      THE LOST CHAMBERS AQUARIUM AND AMBASSADOR LAGOON OVERVIEW

  • The Ambassador Lagoon, Shark Lagoon and The Lost Chambers Aquarium combined are home to over 65,000 marine animals including big eye scads, baby stingrays, moon jellies, moray eels, lobsters, batfish, snapper, hammour, cobia, golden trevallies, piranha, anemones, giant grouper, blue damsels, eagle rays, whitetip reef sharks, gray reef sharks, and zebra sharks.
  • There are more than 250 species of fish at Atlantis
  • More than 100 team members care for the marine animals at Atlantis. Their jobs include aquarists, water quality technicians, veterinarians and even chefs
  • Atlantis Aquarists’ favourite job is to dive with the marine animals, which they all do daily
  • The fish that call Atlantis, The Palm, home are fed over 400 kilos of restaurant quality seafood daily – including shrimp, krill, squid, mackerel, anchovy and other varieties of fish and romaine lettuce each day, which is meticulously prepared in the food preparation area. To put this into perspective that’s one and a half times the amount of seafood Nobu serves in total per week…. in just one day!
  • THE AMBASSADOR LAGOON

  • The Ambassador Lagoon is an 11-million-litre marine habitat and one of the top ten largest aquariums in the world
  • It is also the largest open-air aquarium in Africa and The Middle East
  • The viewing pane into The Ambassador Lagoon is 10 meters tall and 70cm thick
  • The back of house in The Ambassador Lagoon is a force to be reckoned with, using 5.9km of pipework, which is longer than the length of the Palm
  • To keep the lagoon clean, the amount of sand filtered into The Ambassador Lagoon is equivalent to the weight of 580 camels
  • If all the water was drained from The Ambassador Lagoon it would fill 4.5 Olympic sized swimming pools
  • It takes a team of 45 people to ensure the water is successfully filtered around the clock
  • The majority of the fish in The Ambassador Lagoon are schools and shoals. Any group of fish that stay together for social reasons are shoaling, and if the group is swimming in the same direction in a coordinated manner, they are schooling
  • The fish in The Ambassador Lagoon have their favourite dishes. The baby whitetip reef sharks love milkfish, angelfish devour romaine lettuce and bowmouth guitar sharks love blue crab
  • The blacktip reef shark is the most popular and largest breed of shark in The Ambassador Lagoon. Did you know that it’s possible for a female black tip reef shark to fertilize her own eggs and impregnate herself without the help of a male?
  • Blacktip reef sharks can also grow up to six feet (2m) and weigh up to 270 pounds (123kg)
  • With many different species of rays in The Ambassador Lagoon, they are a firm favourite with guests. Rays are amongst the oldest surviving group of jawed vertebrates, first appearing in the fossil record during the lower Jurassic (about 150 million years ago) and during the Ancient Greek times. Dentists used the venom from the stingray's spine as an anesthetic
  • Stingrays are pretty heavy when at full size, weighing a hefty 790 lbs (358 kgs), that’s more than a grand piano
  • The number of people that snorkel in The Ambassador Lagoon averages about 20 guests per day
  • On average 80 guests are lucky enough to dive in The Ambassador Lagoon every week
  • Immersive marine animal adventures are offered for ages 8-80 years old. You can feed rays in waist-deep water in the shark lagoon, snorkel at the surface, walk underwater with a special air supplied helmet, snorkel or even dive with dive certification or without prior dive experience. There is a programme available for everyone
  • THE LOST CHAMBERS AQUARIUM

  • There are 22 exhibits in The Lost Chambers Aquarium
  • 28 people are responsible to clean the big tanks and the small exhibits in The Lost Chambers
  • The Lost Chambers Aquarium welcomes approximately 3,000 guests per week
  • During educational school trips we host approximately 1,200 students per month
  • The Top 3 favourite exhibits of guests visiting The Lost Chambers Aquarium are the seahorses, clownfish and jellyfish
  • The most popular food at The Lost Chambers Aquarium fish is squid
  • Made popular through the Disney Pixar film ‘Finding Nemo’, clownfish, have a special relationship with anemones, which protect them from predators. Clownfish are immune to the stinging tentacles of the anemones by rubbing themselves daily against the tentacles and they also get to eat leftovers from the anemones’ meals! But it’s not all one-sided, clownfish nibble away parasites that bug the anemone as well
  • Another popular fish is the regal tang, known as ‘Dory’ in the Finding Nemo film. Regal tangs have sharp spines located on both sides of their fin base which helps them to defend against predators
  • The naughtiest fish are the blue damsels. They are very territorial, and if any other fish or diver comes too close, they will launch and nip at the invader of their personal space
  • Did you know the piranha is one the oldest living species and has been on earth for 1.3 million years? The word piranha literally translates to ‘tooth fish’ in the Brazilian language, Tupí, and they bite with a maximum force of 72 pounds, that’s three times their own body weight
  • The Lost Chambers Aquarium also has some very small species including seahorse and jellyfish, that enjoy eating phytoplankton and zooplankton
  • Thousands of moon jellyfish are bred each year in the fish hospital of The Lost Chambers Aquarium. A sting from a moon jellyfish may hurt and be itchy, but it won’t be fatal. However, many people don’t even know that they have been stung by one due to the fact that they don’t penetrate well through skin
  • The seahorses in The Lost Chambers Aquarium are mates for life and they enjoy working on their relationship. They meet first thing in the morning to reinforce their pair bonding with an elaborate courtship display of changing colour. They are also the only species in the world which have a true reversed pregnancy. The female transfers her eggs to the male which he self-fertilises in his pouch. The number of eggs can vary from 50-150 for smaller species to 1,500 for larger species
  • Depending on the type of sharks, some have live births while some lay eggs. The eggs are called mermaid’s purses due to the way they look
  • In the fish hospital, guest can see the various developmental phases of the shark embryo while they feed on their yolk and eventually hatch out of their eg
  • The Arabian carpet shark, which is native to the Arabian Gulf, is part of our release program and returned to the wild
  • We’ve had successful ray births of six different species at Atlantis included the eagle rays, porcupine rays, cownose rays, marble rays, honeycomb rays and cowtail rays. They are brought into our fish hospital to grow up to a safe size to be reintroduced back on exhibit or released back into the wild
  •  Wherever possible, an autopsyis performed after every death? But ifthe animal is badly decomposed or partially consumed, it is difficult to perform a necropsy. Necropsies are important because you can learn a lot from the cause to prevent future loss of other marine life
  • Cleaning all the surfaces of an aquarium is important to the health of the animals and provides best water quality for the animals to thrive. The Divers use a suction cup to secure himself and a sponge to clean the windows. They also use a long vacuum hose to suction any settled debris
  • Fancy a job at The Lost Chambers or The Ambassadors Lagoon? The most important skill you’ll need is a love for both animals and people. Having a biology or science degree is best so that you understand the science behind the marine animals as a building base. Prior aquarium experience is a plus as well as a scuba diving certification