The Lake District Coastal Aquarium
Displays (page 2 of 3)
Text and photographs by Paul Barrow

This aquarium scores highly on the way it is set out; there being very little wasted space and very few road blocks, even when it has many visitors, as you move around.
Exhibits are divided in different habitats: freshwater, estuaries, rockpools, intertidal, low water, kelp zone, seabed, reefs & open water. A good number of fish and invertebrates demonstrate the diversity of each.
Besides the usual types of exhibits found in many aquaria nowadays, tidal pools, touch exhibits and large ray pools, other, cleverly planed displays abounded. 

The majority of freshwater fish were shown in a large exhibit called the trout cascade, as the name suggests, its main feature was a waterfall running down a rock face. A good selection of fish was present in this exhibit. Native fish included Barbel, Stone Loach, Tench, Perch, Carp, Roach & Rudd & Brown Trout. 
America was represented by Rainbow Trout and some beautifully spotted American Brook Trout.


It was good to see that most of the fish, especially native marine, were in top condition, very few cloudy eyes or tatty fins were present. The reason very few aquaria display native marine organisms comes down to the fact they can be more fragile than tropical species.
Some well thought out display like the Harbour Wall exhibit brought together creatures which would frequent this type of environment. Certain species were used in more than one exhibit to depict their versatility. One such fish was the Mullet which was in this display and the Estuary display along with Bass & Coalfish. External decoration included wall, nets and floats while internally mooring rings, pots & chains were used.

The Ray Pool seems to be popular in most aquaria. This one did not disappoint as it was full of different species of small sharks, rays, flatfish and other fish. 







Particularly good was a tank displaying Turbot, which had a steeply sloping viewing surface, allowing a good view of these bottom-living flatfish. Judging by the size of the fish they were young and could have been bred in the aquarium itself.





Seaweeds, not usually part of exhibits in aquaria, were used to good effect to portray the feeling of deep water and with of the exhibits. There was a fine display of kelp in this exhibit, kelp being particularly hard to keep as it prefers deep, cold water. Kelp can grow at a fantastic rate, over 1 metre a day has be recorded of the Californian coast.








A nice exhibit of Dogfish & Ray eggs was on display. The Ray's eggs, known as Mermaids Purses, lay on the bottom and were opaque hiding their contents. The Dogfish eggs hung vertically, clearly displaying the pups inside (middle case).






You exited the main body of the aquarium through a sunken galleon. This was an impressive piece of work being high enough for me to walk through without bumping my head, something I could not do when visiting a real one. More exhibits were set into the hull of this boat; these tending to be on the smaller side.




Of the 80 + fish on display, a good proportion are not normally kept in captivity because of the  problem explained at the start. These include: Poor Cod, Sandeels, Weever Fish, Sand Smelts, Butterfly Blennies, Butterfish, Painted Gobies, Pogges & Topknots. Invertebrates abound, it was the variety and quality of the sea anemones that best showed off the colours found underwater in the surrounding sea. From the native marine displays I’ve seen, this is second only to the National Aquarium of Norway, Akvariete, Bergen www.Akvariet.no) which boasts much bigger tanks. Both, however, share the same water regime, cold, clean seawater is collected from the surrounding area and filtered in the aquarium.