BEHIND-THE-SCENES LOOK-SEA ON ITS NEW TOUR, AQUARIUM OF THE PACIFIC GIVES VISITORS AN INSIDE VIEW.

Byline: Phillip Zonkel Staff Writer

The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach has been showing visitors undersea wonders for the past three years and now is inviting the public behind the scenes to witness how it's done.

Twelve months in the making, this new permanent tour offers aqua enthusiasts fun facts about the aquarium (it's made from enough steel to make a bar that stretches 1,400 miles, from San Diego to Seattle; enough concrete to make a 73-mile sidewalk and filters 900,000 gallons of water an hour, enough to fill 50 swimming pools) as well as a glimpse into how the aquarium operates.

``We tried to look at it from the visitors' perspective,'' says education manager John McCord, whose department played an instrumental role in planning the Behind-the-Scenes Tour. ``What would they find interesting about running an aquarium, and what, in general, does it take to run an aquarium?''

With that idea in mind, the department settled on three primary areas for the public to dive in and get a closer look - holding area, food preparation and feeding time at the tropical reef exhibit.

Holding area

The aquarium has as many holding tanks as it does viewing tanks. For the Behind-the-Scenes tour, guests see 20 tanks, ranging in size from several hundred gallons to 20,000 gallons, that hold a variety of animals - fish, invertebrates and marine mammals.

``Animals go into holding or quarantine for 30 to 60 days, depending on the animals, where we monitor them very closely before they go on exhibit,'' says McCord, who says that quarantine times are based on parasite life cycles. ``Just because we have a new animal doesn't mean that it goes on exhibit right away. It has to go through a waiting period to see if it has any diseases or parasites that could be transferred into our exhibit tanks.

``If a disease or parasite got into one of our exhibits, even our largest one, which is 350,000 gallons, it could easily decimate that whole ecosystem,'' he says.

``Other tanks are used if an animal is sick. We might isolate them and treat them for a disease or parasite. On the tour, you might see water that's colored green or yellow and that's because it might have copper or an antibiotic that's being used to treat an animal that might have an infection.''

Food preparation

``Food is a big portion of our day-to-day operation,'' McCord says. ``We have an enormous grocery bill.''

It averages $5,000 week. That total includes accommodating the diets of 12,000 different animals from 500 different species.

``The aquarium has three sea otters, for example, which are fed four times a day, such (foods) as shrimp and clams, and they have to consume a quarter to a third of their body weight every day. That's an average of 15 pounds of food a day,'' McCord says.

Every week, the aquarium feeds 2,000 pounds of food to the animals. Sharks, sea lions and seals are fed mackerel, herring, smelt, squid, krill and sometimes cod, while the plant eaters nibble on nori (processed seaweed used in sushi), romaine lettuce and broccoli.

``We have to tend to a lot of real specific diets,'' McCord says, ``but it's not always vital for us to feed them exactly what they would eat in the natural environment. It is important that they are getting the right nutritional requirements.''

``Their nutrition is similar to humans,'' says aquarist Matt Ankley. ``But we don't like to feed out live food, that increases the chances of transmitting disease to the collection. We like to use frozen food and then supplement it with different kinds of vitamins.''

Tropical reef exhibit

At 350,000 gallons, the tropical reef exhibit is the aquarium's largest tank. Up on the third floor, visitors stand on metal walkways and look down into the gargantuan tank. With nori in hand, they get to feed the colorful menagerie.

``Usually, the guests don't think much of throwing the nori in the water,'' McCord says. ``But once the fish figure out what we're feeding, they go crazy. It's quite an experience to see hundreds of fish going crazy over these pieces of seaweed,'' says McCord.

``It's much cleaner to feed chopped-up seaweed than chopped-up fish, and generally appeals to more guests because it's a cleaner feed.''

BEHIND-THE-SCENES TOUR

Where: Aquarium of the Pacific, 100 Aquarium Way, Long Beach.

When: 9:30 and 11 a.m., 1 and 2:30 p.m. daily; additional tours 10 and 11:30 a.m., 1:30 and 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Tickets: Adults (12 and up) $27.95, kids 3-11 (must be at least 7 years old for tour) $20.95, seniors 60 and older $24.95. All prices include admission to the aquarium. Tickets may be purchased at the aquarium box office or by calling [phone].

Information: [phone] or [phone].

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- color) Above, visitors Ken Widelitz, Tess Murdoch, Julie Epstein and Kiley Widelitz stand on metal walkways and look down into the gargantuan tank at the tropical reef exhibit as they feed nori to the colorful menagerie. At left, an aquarium holding tank affords a behind-the-scens look at invertebrates, fish and other new residents of the water world.(3 -- color) Visitors are given a behind-the-scenes look at the aquarium's tropical fish exhibit.

Aquarium visitor Yvonne Chelein gets a peek into the water filtration system on the aquarium's new tour.

Stephen Carr/Staff Photographer