Nordsøen Oceanarium
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Nordsøen Oceanarium is a public aquarium and museum located at the shores of the North Sea in Hirtshals, north Jutland, Denmark. It is the largest public aquarium in Northern Europe.
The Oceanarium is part of the Nordsøcentret, which also houses a conference centre and a scientific
The Oceanarium was opened in 1998. It is specially designed to hold schooling, pelagic fish. It is of great importance that these fish have sufficient space – a lot more space than in traditional fish tanks – to allow them to show a natural behaviour. Therefore the Oceanarium is constructred with a volume of 4.5 million litres of water. It is not only important that the surface area is large (the Oceanarium is elliptical and measures 22 by 33 metres), but also the large depth (8 m) is necessary for the fishes´ schooling behaviour. Each school of fish can choose depth according to their species, like they do in the sea.
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[edit] The centre tank
The large octagonal tank in the centre of the museum's old building is 5 m deep and holds 120.000 litres of water. The centre tank does not show a particular habitat from the North Sea, but can be seen as a kind of "show-room" where we show large specimens of some of the species which are also seen in the habitat tanks - for example cod, saithe, turbot and sea-bass.
[edit] Habitat tanks
12 tanks, varying in size from 4.000 to 16.000 litres, present different habitats from the North Sea - from the sandy bottom by the jetties to the muddy seafloor at several hundred metres in the Norwegian Trench between Denmark and Norway.
In each tank fish and other sea animals which can be found in that particular habitat are shown. The oceanarium tries to make the bottom and the surroundings as authentic as possible, but of course we have to compromise at some points. For example fish about equal size are kept in each aquarium - or else the smallest would be eaten by the largest!
[edit] Theme tanks
In addition to the centre tank and habitat tanks the oceanarium has a large number of theme-tanks with fish or other marine animals. They may be animals which are impossible to show in other tanks, or animals subject to special theme exhibitions.
For example you'll find theme-tanks in the exhibition "Creepy Crawlies". Here the oceanarium presents different invertebrates. With special "bio-scanners", you can get very close to the animals and see details which can not be seen with the naked eye.
In other theme-tanks you'll find some of the small fish found in shallow water. And in the Activity area there are tanks which staff biologists use for demonstrations.
[edit] Sealarium
In the Oceanariums large out-door seal-pool, the Sealarium, visitors can get close to the two seal species common in Danish waters - the harbour seal and the grey seal. The Sealarium contains 800.000 litres of seawater which is continually renewed.
[edit] Recent history
The Oceanarium was destroyed by fire in December 2003 and reopened in July 2005.
