Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
put in charge of selecting and supervising the installation of the rock
on the tank walls, Herald told me he didn't want any rock protruding
more than three inches because it would reduce the space that could
be occupied by fish. Needless to say, as a diver I wasn't too happy with
tanks that looked like someone's garden wall.
Herald came up to the exhibit floor every day to see how the tank
decorating was going. At one point in the process, though, he left town
to attend a conference. Now was my chance. Knowing that many species
of fish are crevice or shelter dwellers, I instructed the rock masons to
create some caves, ledges, and overhangs that could be utilized by fishes
that would feel uncomfortable in a wide-open tank.
When Herald returned from the conference he immediately came
to see how the rockwork was progressing. He was furious! Of course,
by then the mortar had set up hard and to remove it and redo it would
have put the project behind schedule and over budget, so my attempt
to create a little variety in the habitat was safe. Although I was on Her-
ald's blacklist from then on, I like to think that some of the fish ap-
preciated what I'd done.
I wasn't totally frustrated in my attempts to create more naturalistic
exhibits, however. Included in the plans of the aquarium renovation
was a new intertidal exhibit that would display plants and animals liv-
ing in the tide pools along the central California coast. As Ed Ricketts
understood so well, there are two vital forces shaping life in the tide
pools: waves and tides. Certainly, a tide pool without waves—the most
visually striking of these two forces—is just a motionless pool.
As at Marineland, I was intrigued with the idea of seeing waves crash
into an exhibit like this, and I set about figuring out how to make it
happen. I started experimenting on a small scale. I took a cylindrical
reservoir (actually a plastic garbage can) and, in the bottom, made a
large round hole. I then blocked the hole with a plastic beach ball. Ac-
cording to my plan, when the water in the reservoir rose to a certain
height, a float would lift the ball o¤ the hole and suddenly release all
the water from the reservoir. This sounded very straightforward, and
a consultation with an engineer confirmed I was on the right track.
I put the contraption together and started running water into the
reservoir, watching anxiously as the water level rose, lifting the float.
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