Behind the scenes tour of the aquarium

A good family friend, Mike Dirks, works at the Denver Aquarium. After LT's fun adventures with Z at the aquarium last week, I e-mailed Mike to see if he had any coupons to the aquarium. He replied that he could not only get us in for free, he would give us a behind the scenes tour! Landon has no idea how lucky we are/were, but Brian and I learned a lot and I think LT had fun too.
Landon stretching his legs outside the aquarium while we waited for Mike.

Landon and dad in the control room. Mike is a marine biologist at the aquarium and is in charge of all the water purification systems, temperatures etc for both the salt and fresh water tanks.


Mike is showing us the different water exhibits from above. We are standing above a salt water tank. The aquarium allows scuba divers and so we were able to watch them from above.

Lan watching as one of the workers feeds the fish from above. Certain fish need private feeding sessions. It was interesting to watch her find the exact fish that needed extra food.

Landon listening intently to Mike.


We were able to go into a private room where different fish and sharks are bred, or kept separately for various reasons.


These were the baby sharks. You can see the white albino one!


After our private tour, we were able to enjoy the exhibits as regular visitors. The tiger came right up to us in the window!

LT checking out the big sharks.

And again, he enjoyed touching the sting rays!


Afterwards we had a picnic lunch outside and then went to play on the sea animals.