4 yrs on, yet another facelift for SoBo aquarium

Almost four years after the Taraporevala Aquarium at Marine Drive was once reopened following a refurbishment that dragged on for 3 years and price Rs 22 crore, the rustic’s oldest aquarium is about to obtain every other facelift.

The red-faced aquarium management has admitted that now not a lot has changed since the time the rustic’s oldest aquarium was once shut for renovations in 2012. Such is the state of the aquarium that the paint is peeling off the fish tanks, the aqua-scaping has worn off, and the loss of crowd control has led to injury to the tanks. The latest round of renovation will get started in a couple of months’ time.

The aquarium was once reopened in March 2015, and in spite of a fish spa and screening of marine documentaries being part of the renovation project, the one additions were a three stride-long tunnel aquarium. Maintained and operated by the Department of Fisheries, the aquarium, which is visited by round 2,000 other folks day by day (the number is going as top as 4,000 on weekends), has 16 seawater tanks and 9 fresh water tanks housing 31 forms of fish, whilst the 32 tropical tanks contain 54 kinds of fish.

Fisheries commissioner Arun Vidhale, who is in-charge of the aquarium, said in contrast to 2012, the aquarium will not be shut all over renovations this time round. “The aqua-scaping shall be accomplished afresh, and extra kinds of fish shall be added,” Vidhale said, at the same time as he refused to percentage the details of the fee. The Taraporevala Aquarium curator, Pulkesh Kadam, said the tanks were damaged because of guests knocking on them to catch attention of the fish. “Knocking on the fish tank glass is the most common dependancy amongst guests nevertheless it damages the tank. Some of the stickers on the tanks have come off as neatly,” he said.

The aquarium officials said a number of the kinds of fish to be included shall be parrotfish, squirrelfish, clownfish or even piranhas. Among the tropical types, there are plans to get the Blackghost and the Elephantnose.