Aquariums

It's not surprising that with eight arms and inquisitive nature, the two-spotted octopus is pretty handy around its tank at the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium. Still, those reporting for work Thursday at the popular beachfront attraction were caught by surprise when they were greeted by water lapping around the kelp forest display, the shark and ray tank and the rocky reef exhibit.

Vikas Chinnan stood over a tank at the world's largest aquarium, peering down at the world's largest fish species. He was wondering what it would be like to jump in and frolic beside the whale sharks. The creature approached, eerily quiet. It was longer than a Ford Expedition, impossibly elegant as it banked into a turn at the tank's edge, flexing its gray, massive, mottled form into a parabola of living flesh.

WHEN it comes to TVs, cellphones, fashion models -- and now home aquariums -- slim is in. Skinny, wall-mounted aquariums barely thicker than most plasma TVs are popping up everywhere: on restaurant walls, in store displays, even at mall kiosks, where they are sold as novel home decor. These aquariums make amusing, if not striking, additions to a room, but are they safe for the fish? And is it fair to confine a pet, however tiny, to a place that's often less than 5 inches thick?

A marine mammal theme park proposed by a group of ex-SeaWorld executives for this isolated stretch of western Panama has been stalled by animal rights activists who say that "swim with the dolphins" attractions are cruel and anti-environment. Business and local government boosters say the project, by creating jobs and fueling foreign investment, could help transform this impoverished region into a tourist mecca.

Toilets and pet fish have an unhappy history, but AquaOne Technologies is changing that -- one flush at a time. This wasn't how the Westminster-based company set out to make its name. Really. The serious-minded small business was founded seven years ago with the worthy goal of ending the biggest single source of wasted water in any household: leaky and overflowing toilets.

A city aquarium has announced what it says is the first-ever birth in captivity of a Pacific angel shark, a sand-burrowing species resembling a ray that lives along the West Coast. Because of the difficulty of feeding angel sharks, divers are hand-feeding the pup, said Reid Withrow, director of husbandry at Aquarium of the Bay.

Reversing a decision that some found bureaucratically absurd, the Federal Emergency Management Agency granted $99,766 to a New Orleans aquarium that saved taxpayers a bundle by catching replacements for the fish it lost to Hurricane Katrina. FEMA had said that the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas needed to buy the fish from commercial vendors, a method the agency said would cost $616,849 but would comply with disaster aid laws.

Staff at the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas recalled that in the days after Hurricane Katrina, there were so many dead fish floating on the surface of the giant tanks that it almost looked as if a person could walk across the tops of them. Those tanks are teeming with life again, as were viewing corridors, as the New Orleans aquarium reopened to the public for the first time since Katrina blew out windows and cut power for longer than generators could hold out.

DR. LANCE ADAMS preps for surgery, snapping on latex gloves under a clear blue sky. Nearby, a medical team wearing hooded wetsuits administers underwater anesthesia. Members of the team hoist the doped patient out of the pool and muscle her onto a makeshift operating table. Adams, gripping sterile scissors, confers with various specialists on respiration rates and oxygen levels. "How's her gilling?" he calls out to his dozen colleagues clad in black rubber.