Home › Business › Local Business
Aquarists wear many hats, wet suits while taking care of water-breathers
Photo by Craig FritzTribune
Tribune
Senior aquarist Summer Woods-Tunney feeds African Chichilids at the Shark Reef in the Albuquerque Aquarium.
Photo by Craig FritzTribune
Tribune
In the women's locker room at the Albuquerque Aquarium, senior aquarist Joanna Gruger rinses off between working in two different tanks. The rinse is necessary to avoid contamination of the tanks. Gruger says she loves swimming in the tanks because "it's quiet in there and very calming."
Photo by Craig FritzTribune
Tribune
Senior aquarist Joanna Gruger waits for another diver while doing a safety test in the ocean tank of the Albuquerque Aquarium.
Photo by Craig FritzTribune
Tribune
Joanna Gruger cleans the eel tunnel at the Albuquerque Aquarium as school children watch. Gruger has been an aquarist with the city for six years.
Albuquerque Aquarium
Staff: The Albuquerque Aquarium has nine aquarists and five life-support technicians. Senior aquarist Joanna Gruger said there is considerable overlap in the two jobs. "Who makes the aquarium work? It's 50/50 with life-support staff and aquarium staff," she said.
Necessary skills: "Aquarists are part chemist, scuba diver, biologist, behaviorist, plumber, janitor and electrician," said Holly Casman, aquarium manager. The nine aquarists are dive certified, an essential aspect for aquarists working with large tanks.
Becoming an aquarist: The aquarium hires temporary workers who work for two years with the possibility of becoming full-time staff. A bachelor's degree in biology can be helpful but not a requirement.
Challenges: In an effort to replicate animals' natural environments throughout their life stages, aquarists said developing successful aquacultures is a complex part of the job. Breeding in captivity is difficult, but "if we can supply captive-bred (animals), it's better than taking from the wild," said Andy Allison, assistant curator at Albuquerque Aquarium.
Income: Entry-level aquarists can expect to earn anywhere from $17,000 to $25,000 annually, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, whereas senior positions can be upward of $45,000 depending on experience. Casman said temporary positions at the aquarium start at about $8 an hour and work up from there.
Dive in: Becoming a certified scuba diver takes 35 hours of training, including classroom instruction and multiple open-water dives. Bert Eriksson, owner of Sandia Snorkel and Scuba Inc. in Albuquerque, said classes start at $115 and can cost as much as $335, and the only gear you need at first is a snorkel, mask and fins. Sandia Snorkel is certified by the Professional Association of Diving and has 25 courses a year. (505) 247-8632.
More Local Business
- Mineral leases concern residents in eastern New Mexico
- PNM: Power Saver plan would reduce electricity use in peak demand cycle
- Air-bag waiver brings Tesla car plant one step closer to Albuquerque
MOST RECENT TRIB STORIES
-
ABQTrib.com to remain available
08:48 a.m., February 25, 2008 -
Congressman is indicted
08:37 a.m., February 23, 2008 -
Series of attacks target Green Zone
08:36 a.m., February 23, 2008 -
Iran is defying U.N., agency says
08:35 a.m., February 23, 2008 -
Waterboarding approval probed
08:34 a.m., February 23, 2008
TRIB IN THE BLOGOSPHERE*
- Ty Murray Invitational thrills fans in Albuquerque
- Is Rome Burning?
- Ominous Skies
- The Road to Invalidation
- Albuquerque company participates in “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”
*Note: The Tribune does not create and is not responsible for the blogosphere's headlines and stories. These links to blogs talking about ABQTrib.com are automatically generated. Use them at your own risk.
STORY TOOLS
SHARE THIS STORY [?]
The next time you're standing near the water cooler at work and bump into a co-worker with whom you don't particularly see eye-to-eye - just remember the aquarists.
The co-workers they bump into are sharp-toothed sharks.
"Actually," said Andy Allison, 31, assistant curator at the Albuquerque Aquarium, "the ones to watch out for in the shark tank are the sergeant majors."
The taco-sized striped fish is highly territorial and stories of nibbled ears and pulled hair are all-too familiar at aquariums where they're residents.
While diving with sharks and sergeant majors sounds interesting enough, work as an aquarist also involves a mix of marine biology, physiology and water-quality control.
"Every day is half routine and half surprise," said Summer Woods-Tunney, a 30-year-old dive master and senior aquarist at the aquarium. "The animals present so many variables. You have to watch for the slightest changes."
So, every morning at the aquarium, a team of nine aquarists form small divisions and branch off to check their section's animals. Cleaning glass and inspecting the exhibits gives the aquarists time to ensure nothing fishy is going on.
Even tiny changes in behavior must be accounted for, like a fish swimming erratically or too slowly or scratching itself on a landform in the tank.
Clean water, happy fish
If an issue does arise, the aquarists have the ability to place the animal in quarantine, a staging room for animals new to the aquarium and animals with suspicious behavior.
The room, like so many amid the aquarium's labyrinthine back stage, is lined with rows of pipes and pumps - filtration systems playing a constant symphony of hum and splash.
Tucked in the back of the quarantine area, a series of pipes emit an eerie glow.
"Those are ultraviolet sterilizers," Allison said. "The light inside is so intense it breaks down viruses and keeps the water clear of yellow protein."
Aquariums have three filtration systems, which do everything from removing dust to altering the chemical composition of the water, he said.
"Fish waste has ammonia, so the fish can kill themselves if bacteria aren't introduced to kill the ammonia," he said.
There are times, however, when filters can only do so much and nature must inevitably take its course.
Enter the necropsy area.
"An unfortunate part of the job is fish die," Tunney said. "We're the coroners to find the cause."
The casualty on this day is a fancy goldfish from a holding tank. A septic liver seems to be the culprit.
"That's a trashed liver, and this is what happens when you drink too much, boys and girls," Tunney said while prodding the fish's internals.
Next to the operating table, Jennifer Kraus is examining the fish's scales under a microscope, looking for parasites.
Kraus, 20, is one of four student temps who work at the aquarium, gaining job experience in hopes of becoming marine biologists and senior aquarists.
During the necropsy, Allison and Jennifer Fugatt, 26, a lab technician and water-quality specialist, enter the room and inquire about the goldfish, each with specific questions about everything from body-fluid color to stomach contents.
The concern within the group is protocol, and every possibility must be explored to ensure the health of other animals.
Creating aquacultures
But just as the goldfish's death brings a bit of apprehension to the staff, life brings excitement. Tucked behind the exhibit walls at the aquarium, a new life has spawned fervor among the aquarists. A baby Mediterranean cuttlefish the size of a quarter is the centerpiece for Tunney's aquaculture projects, among them, increasing the aquarium's cuttlefish population.
In an effort to reduce the degradation on natural populations, aquarists take on the intricate duty of creating aquacultures to breed delicate marine animals, like the cuttlefish.
"The baby cuttlefish is my No. 1 cool thing I've done here," said Tunney. "And I've done a lot of cool things here."
Holly Casman, manager of the aquarium, said breeding in captivity is one way of replenishing tanks, but sometimes collectors, who catch and sell fish to aquariums, are consulted.
"We prefer doing it ourselves, because we know they've acclimated well to the tanks and it's more economical," Casman said.
Breeding and raising marine animals in aquacultures also prevents unscrupulous collectors and wholesalers from benefiting from sales to commercial and private aquariums.
"There are actually people that take fish and inject them with dye to enhance their colors," said Aaron Michael Martinez, aquarist and freshwater manager at Clark's Pet Emporium in Albuquerque. "Those colors fade, and it's fish torture. I don't deal with that."
Taking the dive
Standing on a porous metal platform in flip flops, Sage Butts jabs a vitamin-packed fish on the end of a 6-foot pole and drops it into the water a foot from her open toes.
It's shark feeding time at the aquarium.
Swarming gracefully in a soup of ocean life, more than 50 species of ocean life call the 285,000-gallon main tank home alongside the 17 sharks.
Today Butts, 19, and Joanna Gruger, 28, are going to take a dive in the shark tank for routine algae scrubbing and hand-feeding the stingrays and puffer fish.
Diving is something every aquarist at the aquarium is certified to do, and rotations alter every day. Sometimes nature surprises the aquarists, such as when the stingrays have live births inside the shark tank.
"That's exciting because the sharks love baby stingrays," said Gruger, a senior aquarist and dive master. "We're swimming around in there looking for the babies, and so are the sharks."
After feeding and cleaning is over, Gruger and Butts focus on the shark tank's recent development: the screen mesh lining the bottom of the tank is exposed in areas and starting to fray.
With every day, the aquarist will dive into a mix of routine and surprise, and do it all out of their love for nature and for the sake of educating the public on marine animals and their delicate environments.
They also live for the perks of the job.
"It's awesome to dive and be around the animals. It's quiet in there and very calming," Gruger said. "There's only a handful of people that dive every day in New Mexico, much less with sharks. We're lucky."
