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A Visit to the Belle Isle Aquarium
While I was visiting relatives in my old home town this summer, I decided to take a trop to the Belle Isle Aquarium. I am sure only a few, if any, of you have ever heard of or have been to the Belle Isle Aquarium.
The Belle Isle Aquarium is located on Belle Isle which is in the Detroit River in Detroit, Michigan. Belle Isle is "America's largest City-Owned Island Park. . . ." The Island has an area of 1000 acres and is home to the aquarium, the Dossin Great Lakes Museum, a nature center, a conservatory, a children's zoo, Detroit Boat Club, Detroit Yacht Club and several recreation sites for golf, tennis and fishing. In the winter, ice skating and sledding are the main outdoor activities. The Island is also the site of the Detroit Grand Prix Auto Race.
The Belle Isle Aquarium is part of the City of Detroit Zoological Parks Department. According to the Belle Isle Aquarium background information sheet, "The Belle Isle Aquarium is the oldest continually operating public aquarium in North America. Construction began in 1901 and was completed three years later. The official opening was August 18, 1904." It was just a coincidence that I was there on the 90th anniversary of the aquarium.
The admission to the aquarium was small, $1. We asked the lady taking our money if there was someone we could see about a tour and maybe a behind-the-scenes look also. Since it was the 90th anniversary, she was not sure if someone was free, but would find out. We went ahead and started to look around. The Belle Isle Aquarium has 100 various size aquariums set into the wall. They range from 200 to 4,000 gallons. That tanks were originally made of metal but were replaced with concrete tanks when the aquarium was remodeled in 1955. There was a pond for carp and turtles and a screened in pool for sea lions and otters, but these were replaced with aquaria in the 1955 remodeling. The Aquarium had saltwater aquariums until 1984 when they were removed to "protect the aging building from the corrosive effects of saltwater vapor."
In about 30 minutes, Douglass Sweet, the curator of the Belle Isle Aquarium came out to meet us. I introduced myself as being a member of the Tampa Bay Aquarium Society and that I had grown up in the Detroit metro area. Mr. Sweet was very helpful in showing us the whole operation of the Belle Isle Aquarium.
Each display tank has its own stainless steel box filters with bio balls and floss with a return pipe that runs off of air. The boxes are large, probably holding 5-7 gallons of water. With careful feeding and no over crowding of the tank, they worked quite well. A sort of portable sand filter is used as a supplementary filter if needed. The electric eel tank is the only one with a UV sterilizer unit. This helps to prevent a skin infection common to electric eels. Each tank has a 1-inch hose attached to the filter that can be lowered into a drain hole for quick siphoning. A large vat is used to warm up and condition new city water before it is pumped to the aquariums (total 10,000 gallons). The building is heated to keep the correct temperature for the tropical fish. The cold water tanks each have a refrigeration unit to keep the temperature cool for the display of fish found in the Detroit river, such as trout, bass, pike, perch and walleye. The Discus tank has its own heater to keep the water even warmer.
The Belle Island Aquarium grows some of its own food such as meal worms and Daphnia magnia. The meal worms are grown in a large metal box, layered with burlap and fed apples. The Daphnia magnia is in several large vats with lots of aeration. Sweet has developed a dry mix that he feeds at a measured amount dependent on the population of the Daphnia. This way they are not over or under fed. The aquarium also feeds 8,000 night crawlers and 6,000 - 16,000 goldfish per month. Frozen fish such as herring are also used. A small amount of black tubifex is also fed. Tubifex is high in fat so it is fed sparingly. With some of the fish living for many years, Douglass Sweet is concerned about fatty liver disease. Proper nutrition is a must for the long term health of the fish. There are also several aquariums behind the scenes for isolation of new arrivals, extra specimens and breeding tanks.
Belle Isle Aquarium has many displays of very large fish that are quite eye-catching. There are two huge (3-4 feet long) Australian lung fish (Neoceratodus fosteri) that have been at the Aquarium since 1966, making them the oldest residents. There are "only about 20 individuals in captivity in the United States and Canada." The electric eel (Electrophorus etectrinus) exhibit is a sight to see. When feeding, a light bulb lights and a speaker makes noise when the eel discharges electricity. The eel is very large, around 4-5 feet, and is 14 years old. Another of the huge inhabitants is an alligator gar (Lepistosteus spatula). The fish is probably 8-feet long and 2-feet thick (no kidding). It is in their largest tank (4,000 gallons) and it makes the 4-foot red tail cat look small. The gar was in a smaller 2,800 gallon tank, but when moved to the large tank it became calmer. (I wonder how they moved it? I should have asked.)
Some of the other large fish are the Asian arrowana, a true giant gourami (with a face only a mother could love), cherry barbs, black ruby barbs, 8-inch Anablems (foureye fish), and Lepurinus anostomus. Something you wouldn't see in Florida is the aquarium full of 8-inch red belly piranhas. If you have never seen them, the red belly piranha is a pretty fish with a silver-gray body, red underside and gold specks across the sides. In an aquarium they are not the "man-eaters" they have been stereotyped as, but can be quite shy and nervous fish. There is also on aquarium full of nothing but Neolamprologus brichardi. There must have been 40-50 fish and it was a beautiful scene. One of my personal favorites is the brackish water aquarium. The 5 to 6-inch mono Argentine (finger fish) and 5 to 6-inch puffers made the fish in my brackish water aquarium look like newborns. I'm going to need a larger aquarium for mine.
The lighting used for the glass fish and glass cat aquarium is unique. The front and rear of the aquarium was covered with polarizing film (which only lets light waves of a certain orientation through) and the fluorescent lights were set vertically behind the aquarium. This gave an eerie effect. It was difficult to see where the light source was coming from when looking into the front of the display. The fish were much easier to see than if the conventional top lighting was used. The schools of 4-inch glass fish and glass cats were an impressive sight (the glass were "au naturale," not painted).
Next to the glass cats and glass fish is an aquarium with Farlowella cats and a bunch of Farlowella fry. Douglas Sweet has no problem in getting the adults to lay eggs, but rearing the fry is difficult. He is trying all kinds of foods to find the right one.
The Aquarium also has a display of desert pupfish (Cyprinodow macularius). The aquarium is half-filled with layers of flat rocks for hiding spaces, and the air is half planted with succulent desert plants. The desert pupfish is on the endangered list due to loss of habitat. The Belle Isle Aquarium is participating in a captive breeding program. The Aquarium also has "many other endangered or very rare species," including the "Charco La Palma pupfish (Cyprinodow longidorsclis), . . . green goodeids, blue-tailed goodeids, golden skiffia, and many Lake Victoria mouth brooders." Belle Isle is also known for breeding three species of freshwater stingrays: dwarf, checker board, and ocellated. The ocellated stingray has been bred through three generations. The babies from the dwarf stingray are at more than a dozen other institutions and two of these places have bred a second generation of dwarf stingrays using the techniques developed at the Belle Isle Aquarium.
Another display has something you might have heard of, Zebra Mussels (Dreissena polymorpha). The zebra mussel was introduced into Lake St. Clair in 1986 from ballast water from a visiting ship. It is now found in all of the Great Lakes. The zebra mussels out-compete the native mussels for food and space. There are no native mussels found in Lake Erie anymore, and very few found in the Detroit River. Fishermen comment on how clear some of the water is. The zebra mussels have eaten just about everything and have disrupted the food chain for the native species. They also clog up water intake pipes for water treatment plants. The plants have to shut down to clear their pipes.
If you are ever in the Detroit area, make it a point to see the Belle Isle Aquarium. You will be pleased you did. I wish to thank Doug Sweet, the curator, for all of his time, for all of the knowledge he shared, and for the Belle Isle Aquarium background information sheet that I used as a reference for this article.
