the florida aquarium in tampa, fl (lots of pics)

[xgrafcorex]

went with my parents and brother while i was visiting them for thanksgiving last week. took a lot of pics, here are a bunch of them. i thought it was strange they had a snake there. unfortunately, they only had one. forgive my lack of knowledge of the scientific names..and even in some cases, common names.

outside statue/sign

their lonely rat snake

sign below rat snake enclosure...last i knew, Elaphe guttata guttata was a corn snake...just like in the picture :}

florida red bellied turtle

yellow crowned night heron

gators

snapping turtle

otters

florida box turtle

yellow crowned night heron

lazy turtles

"glass fish"

?

early aquarium

flounder

barracuda

sting ray

bonnet shark

? rock fish?

?

?

"goliath grouper" said to weigh up to 1000 pounds

horseshoe crab

i'll have to see if my brother remembers what this was from..but it is a magnified view of a tongue

statue outside

one of my favorites, moray eels

nurse shark?

?

?

jellyfish

couldn't get any good shots of sharks in the bigger tank, there was a large crowd and a presenter with a REALLY annoying voice..this is the best i could get during the time i could stand the narrator. bull shark??

more eels...zebra, snowflake, and one dragon

dragon moray

lionfish

skate eggsac

skate

 

[funnylori]

:worship: WOW! Applause to your aquaria photography skills! It is so difficult for me to get pictures worth keeping when I visit the aquarium.:worship:

 

[skinheaddave]

Agreed! Impressive photos. If you did want to get that extra little quality out of them, you should consider getting a polarizing filter to remove the glare from the glass. That being said, your pictures without such a filter are better than many I've seen that were using the proper kit.

What size tank were those barracuda in? Did you see any of them really move? One of the fish I would definitely love to keep -- but only if I could give them enough room to move at top speed.

Red rat snake is another common name for the corn snake. After all, what's in a common name?

Cheers,
Dave

 

[reptscue]

Great pictures!
Got a correction for you... The one you labled as a blue heron and the unknown are both yellow-crowned night herons.

 

[xgrafcorex]

thanks everyone! this was my first time taking pics at an aquarium..but i've had practice taking pics of critters through glass at home..and i took a few of my neighbors aquarium once. i'll have to look into that polarizing filter...the glare was the worst part about taking photos there.

What size tank were those barracuda in? Did you see any of them really move? One of the fish I would definitely love to keep -- but only if I could give them enough room to move at top speed.

nope, unfortunately just were fairly stationary. no darting around at anything.

i'm not really sure how big the tank was, but it was very big!! kind of an odd shaped enclosure to fit the space available. a rough guess would be that the tank was 15 to 20 feet in length, the water level was about 4 feet high, and the tank was about 4 or 5 feet wide. just a guess from my memory of the enclosure heh.

thanks reptscue, i was actually fairly busy taking pics, and didn't get around to reading each sign..and some of them i did read just didn't make it into permanent memory.

 

[maxident213]

Those are great pictures, I love the eels. :clap:

 

[james41777]

very nice pictures...
I think I've been there seven years ago!

 

[Mr. Mordax]

Sweet! I need to go there sometime. Your photos make the Oregon Coast Aquarium look like nothing.

 

[Lorgakor]

Great pics!

That last shark isn't a bull shark it is a Sandtiger shark. Otherwise known as Snaggletooth/Raggedtooth shark. Very common in aquariums.

 

[Loaf]

Yeah, I would have to agree with everyone else, nice pics!!!!!!!!!
You did a really good job with the aquarium shots!

 

[Loaf]

Sweet! I need to go there sometime. Your photos make the Oregon Coast Aquarium look like nothing.

Sweet! A fellow Oregonian!

 

[xgrafcorex]

thanks! yea, i wasn't sure about that shark..bull was my best guess. i wanted to spend some more time looking at the sharks..but there was just such a large crowd of people..i just took a minute to look and then kept moving.

one of these days i'm gonna take a trip down to the miami aquarium. its probably about an hour..maybe a little farther away from my house. from the looks of it on google earth, its pretty big! i'll be sure to take pics and post them.

 

[Brian F.]

Great pics. That snake is an Everglades ratsnake (Elaphe obsoleta rosselini?). Pretty common down there, I would imagine.

 

[tarsier]

Awesome pictures!!! :drool:

Wish I could go to that place someday.

And here are some IDs for some of the fish (sorry, not really good with scientific names either):

stone fish

trumpet mouth

a puffer

a cowfish with a bunch of garden eels

you are right about the nurse shark. the pic after that is another stonefish, then a leafy seadragon (from Australia i think).

 

[Tleilaxu]

I think there were several rat snakes in that cage and the one you photographed was an everglades rat snake.

 

[Axlrose]

Pterophyllum scalare

beautiful screens

 

[craig84]

Looks nice. I have been there several times but its like $30 for a ticket right? And its all the same stuff

 

[xgrafcorex]

thanks axl.

craig - i think it's close to 40 bucks...to be honest though, i was visiting my parents at the time and they paid so i'm not sure. they had some coupon(s?) which helped out a bit. i've only been once or twice, and if i have been twice..the first time was a number of years ago. so i can't really comment on it all being the same..if you recognize all that stuff then you're probably right. i'm sure every so often they have a special event or something that might bring in some new stuff to see.

 

[wolfpak]

Awesome pictures!!! :drool:

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a cowfish with a bunch of garden eels

you are right about the nurse shark. the pic after that is another stonefish, then a leafy seadragon (from Australia i think).

those are gobies and boxfish

 

[PhilK]

Plenty of mis-diagnosed I.Ds but that's OK! So many Australian natives there! Weird..