Animal care

Aquatic animal care

What does animal care mean? In its most general forms, day-to-day animal care consists of three things:

  • Environment
  • Observation and behavior
  • Nutrition

When we say animal care or animal husbandry, we are excluding healthcare. That comes later!

Someone who takes care of aquatic animals on a daily basis may be called a... keeper, trainer, biologist, aquarist, aquarium biologist, or animal specialist, among other things. For a quick overview on what an aquarist is, see this page.

Environment

In an aquarium setting, the biggest component of an animal's environment is... the water! Just as aquarists need to know about the biology of the animals they're working with, they also must have some understanding of water chemistry. We'll discuss water quality later.

Other environmental considerations are components that could make up habitat, including sand or gravel; rock stacked up on the bottom; artificial rockwork, or structures along the walls; shells; artificial (or live) seaweed or seagrass; and driftwood.

Habitat is determined by what species and how many animals are in the exhibit. Fish and invertebrates vary drastically in their environmental needs. The more animals, the more space and habitat is likely needed. Generally, the size of an exhibit is determined before it is built and is based on a collection plan, a detailed list of the species an organization currently has and what it plans to have in the future.

Giant Pacific octopus exhibit with sand, artificial rockwork and kelp, and live anemones and urchins. The only physical environmental consideration it needs is the crevices within the habitat—they are solitary den-dwellers. © 2018 New England Aquarium

Observation and behavior

An aquarist caring for animals on a daily basis must observe them regularly to:

  • Establish familiarity over time to improve their care
  • Know their physical condition
  • Recognize their behavior: their own and their interactions with others (of their species and with other species, if with multiple)

Knowing an animal's regular condition and behavior is necessary in order to detect problems early. Even with an invertebrate like a sea anemone, we know its physical appearance, location, food intake, and some behaviors! Slight changes in an animal's appearance or behavior could be good, such as mating behavior and egg laying, or could be bad, like the first signs of an infection.

Training and conditioning efforts are evolving in public aquariums to help manage both individual fish and fish populations. However, to properly care for birds and mammals, modern zoos and aquariums rely heavily on training in the form of operant conditioning, as these vertebrates are more complex and therefore require more complex care and healthcare. In fish populations, intentional training is mostly utilized for sharks and rays. But all fishes are capable of learned behaviors! Have you ever seen them swim to the surface in anticipation of being fed?

Nutrition

Speaking of being fed, that brings us to nutrition—who doesn't love eating?! Feeding public aquarium collections is an incredibly diverse task; we have lots of differently sized mouths! This picture contains four different types of shrimp that I fed out at one time. Hit the arrows to reveal which animal each shrimp was fed to!

This is only a small sample of the many types of frozen and live foods that public aquariums feed to thousands of species of fish and invertebrates. For larger fish such as large eels, groupers, or sharks, we use bigger frozen items, like salmon or mackerel or whole squid. We also utilize pellets and gel foods, which may be formulated for specific groups of animals to have appropriate protein, fat, and carbohydrate contents. Many aquatic animals even get vitamins, like shark and ray tablets and liquid vitamins for bony fishes!

In aquatic exhibits, there are a few methods of distributing food:

 

  • Broadcast feeding: releasing food at the surface of the water, typically for systems with mostly fish
  • Hand or stick feeding: giving food directly to individual animals, either by hand in shallow systems or by using a feeding stick or tongs in deeper systems
  • Target feeding: using positive reinforcement to encourage individuals to come to a specific target or location to receive food
  • Underwater feeding: while scuba diving, feeding many animals from a bucket, or individuals by hand or with a tool; likely during a public presentation with an organization's largest exhibits
  • This can incorporate target feeding as well – check out this 2011 video of aquarists at Monterey Bay Aquarium feeding three species of sharks underwater

 

For more mammal-centric diet preparation, peer into the operations of Bronx Zoo's commissary from a YouTube clip of Animal Planet's The Zoo. My favorite diet is the massive "salad" being prepared... wonder who that's for!
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