The four-story Giant Ocean Tank features a coral reef, an underwater communications system, large windows, and hundreds of Caribbean reef animals, including sea turtles, eels, and fishes.
At its deepest point, the Giant Ocean Tank goes down 23 feet.
It is 40 feet wide and holds 200,000 gallons of salt water. The water is heated to between 72° and 75° F, which is a perfect temperature range for this tropical exhibit. This exhibit is so big that it was built first, and then the rest of the Aquarium was built around it.
Animals
The unchallenged star of the exhibit is Myrtle the green sea turtle. Myrtle has lived at the Aquarium since June 1970, and some of our adult visitors remember seeing her when they came to the Aquarium as children. Myrtle shares the Giant Ocean Tank with about 1,000 animals. There are dozens of species, including moray eels, barracuda, loggerhead sea turtles, and hundreds of colorful reef fishes.
Habitat
The Giant Ocean Tank is a Caribbean coral reef exhibit. The coral was handmade and painted by Aquarium artists. The habitat inside has more than 3,000 carefully sculpted coral elements, and it is so accurate that it can be hard to tell it isn’t real. Coral reefs are found throughout the world’s tropical and subtropical oceans. Tropical Atlantic coral reefs, such as the one represented in the Giant Ocean Tank, extend as far north as the Bahamas. Aquarium divers and researchers go on regular expeditions to these habitats. Visit and learn even more during daily live presentations at the top of the tank!