As promised in a much earlier post, I made my way up to the John G. Shedd Aquarium this last weekend. Anyone in the midwest USA needs to head to Chicago to check this out. Seriously, it's amazing.

First thing was first when I got there. I had to check out the "Amazon Rising" exhibit. This shows the different underwater environments that exist in the Amazon throughout the seasons due to the river's regular flood cycle. Back in the high water portion of the exhibit is where they had the Oscars!

They were housed in a corner bow type aquarium, but nothing like what you'd see in the fish store. This tank was about seven feet tall and it's bow front was three times my reach so roughly 18 feet. I'll apologize now for the picture quality, my camera isn't meant for this type of work but it's all that I've got. The gently bowed surface of the tank made it impossible to eliminate all the glare too. Look closely and you'll find me in every shot.

These are some big boys!







These guys were all over a foot long. Some perspective on the size of this tank can bee seen by checking out second picture. The smaller cichlids below the Oscar are about six inches long.






The Oscars share their home with Red Bellied Pirhanna. This was a big deal to some of you folks on here that heard about this on an earlier post. There are a couple dozen large O's in this tank and maybe three dozen Pirhanna. According to the fishkeepers, they coexist in nature. Adult Pirhanna don't normally eat whole live fish or go into "feeding frenzies". They will on occasion take a chunk out of one on their tankmates sides if they get hungry enough. Proper feeding and they fact that they are kept in an enormous tank keep that too a minimum. They also assured me that Oscars are tough enough to take such injuries in stride. Any of you who've had your O's swimming around with a chuck of their flesh flapping off of them know wht they are talking about. None of the fish in the aquarium showed signs of injury. I'm going to add here that in Home Aquariums these to fish are completely incompatible. You simply don't have the space to see the natural behaviors play out.



I couldn't find the description for these fish at the aquarium. There are maybe 40 of them in tank. They hung out at the bottom. This shot shows you a bit of how the fishkeepers here made their authentic habitat. There is a sandy silt bottom decorated with naked branches, wood, and large smooth rock. Just what you'd find on a repeatedly flooded plain.

Finally, I didn't see a single sign of HITH disease. The environment that these fish were kept in seemed to be pristine. I've got a lot of respect for the guys who tank care of this exhibit and all of the others at The Shedd. This place is a must see for anyone planning on taking a trip to Chicago.

John G. Shedd Aquarium Website

I have may more pics taken from the various exhibits at "The World's Largest Indoor Aquarium". As I kept taking pictures I actually got better at them too. Let me know if you wanna see them!

Looks really good, would like to see more detailed photos of what the inside of the tank looks like. It would have helped me set up my Amazon theme tank up. Those other fish look a little bit like Earth eaters but I couldn't be absolutely positive.

I really wish I could go and have a look, there is nothing like this anywhere near me.

The majority of the tank is open water. And there is a huge tree growing up out of the middle of it. There isn't much decor at all. Just the way Oscars like it.

I assume they are not bothering with plants?

Sounds a little bit like my new 300 gallon tank. My substrate is a little darker, black sand. I've got two massive pieces of wood which stretch out to around 6 feet long and 2 1/2 feet high. A few cobbles and some pieces of rock. Looking forward to getting the lights in. I was going to post a picture but it looked too dark without lights.

There weren't any live plants. There were sort of ribbon type strands that convincingly simulated long blades of grass that were not planted but caught in the twigs and branches. For the most part though, your tank sounds like it's right on the mark with theirs.

You went to the Shedd? I was just up there in August.

When I was there, the oscars all(or at least most) had HITH. So did the pbass(and really bad too).

I also remeber a piranha chasing the Oscars around. I know a lot about piranha, there some of my favorite fish, being from the Amazon like oscars. I've written several long articles about piranha care and piranha conservation.

I also managed to take several pictures, I mine as post some up here.

I also noticed a lot of small peices of driftwood on the bottom.

Cheers,
Art

By the way, did you see the fish of the worls areas? They had some really cool midas and red devils(sadly they all had HITH).

Hell yes! I nearly spent the entire day there. The Red Devils/Midas tank was extremely well lit in a dark area. My pics there turned out much better.

Check it...





No HITH here either. I wonder... What actually causes that disease. It's strange that it seemed to be prolific just a few months ago and now it eradicated. I didn't mention it to any of the fishkeepers up there because seriously, I didn't see a single sign of it. Hopefully I'll be in Chicago again soon on business. I'll have to get their scoop on this stuff.

That's odd. The fish had no HITH?

This isn't my first time at the Shedd, I went there once before, and now that I think of it, I don't remember any fish having HITH...

Hey, umm just curious, but can I use some of your pics for my website? PM me.

Yeah, they midas tank was awesome. They were constantly trying to get food from the ground and their was a lot of crap floating around...

Art

I was just at the aquarium on Sept. 1st and I thought I'd add a couple other pics. They're not the best either, glare galore but I think mine do a good job at showing how big the oscars are there!







On this last pic you can barely see this bubble in the oscars mouth, like the inside "gums" blew up. Just about all of them seemed to have it there, and I was curious about it?

I can't really see this bubble. I would imagine that they have trained experts on hand in case anything goes wrong. I'm sure that if it was a serious health issue, somebody would be dealing with it. We have come National Marine aquarium not far from me. They have all sorts of experts that deal with poorly fish.

A lot of fish have what I would describe as a curtain of flesh just inside their mouth, at the front of the roof of the mouth. I am just wondering if this is what you can see.

I don't know if that is what it would be, it seemed to be on the top and bottom. I just thought it was weird.

I guess I'm lucky, I live about 15 minutes from the Shedd, and go about 4 or 5 times a year. I've been to many aquariums across the US amd the Shedd is by far the best I've been to so far.