Episode: 12
Title: A Day in the life of an Aquarist
Broadcast: 22nd April 2018
Presenter: Chrissy Morrissy

The Western Australia coastline is the place to be for incredible aquatic adventures and what better job is there to explore the ocean life than being an Aquarist. There are around a couple of hundred Aquarists in the wild in WA but by far the biggest concentration is at WA’s largest Aquarium, AQWA.

• An Aquarist looks after marine creatures in aquariums. Aquarists are equally as happy above the water as below but most importantly have a passion for all things marine.
• The Aquarists at AQWA perform a variety of tasks daily including preparing food for the fish by cutting it up, approximately one wheelie bin full per day and hand feeding different creatures.
• Aquarists are responsible for ensuring the water quality of the various aquariums at AQWA. The large aquarium tank is an open water system, which brings in clean water from the ocean so is easy to maintain.
• The smaller aquariums upstairs are much trickier as they are affected by the coral growing in them, the lights and many other factors. The aquarists are constantly monitoring them to ensure they maintain the right levels.
• The major thing affecting the quality of the water is the amount of poo in the water which the aquarists have to manually remove. This involves manually scrubbing the rocks and coral and vacuuming.

W: www.aqwa.com.au
P: (08) 9447 7500