Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations SPRING BREAAAAK! (at The Newport, KY Aquarium)

Last week, the Gallus family went South for Spring Break (one day of it, anyway), back to Kentucky where we came from almost a hundred years ago. We had the great pleasure of touring the fantastic aquarium in Newport, just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. Located amidst a plush shopping center "On the Levy", this has to be one of the top (inland) aquariums in the country!

"On the Levy"


One of the first exhibits is this large, colorful collection of Cichlids from Lake Malawi in Africa. Some of you Tilapia-owning PMs may recognize something in here.


More Cichlids here, these from Central America IIRC. My kids thought the bulbous headed striped fellow in the center looked like Grandma. Based on info from the 1995 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, I believe it is a Guapote. The males get this big growth on the forehead once they reach a foot long or so.


The bad news was we were there on Tuesday, and these Piranha only get fed on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So I can state that no cows were eaten by fish during the duration of our visit to Newport. BTW, these guys are about 10" long!


They had about a dozen of these Pacu, which must have weighed at least 10 pounds apiece. Based on the shape and fin configuration, I think they are related to the Piranha.


The aquarium has a big tank 50 or 60 feet long showing fish from the greater Mississippi basin, including these 4 or 5 foot long sturgeons.


One disappointment was the BG - I suppose that is an understandable hazard for Pond Boss types! I spent the last month before the trip to Kentucky taking winterkilled BG bigger than these out of my pond. On second thought, since these BG were alive, they weren't as disappointing as my dead ones.

I am not sure what the big dark fish on the right side of the picture is. It was rather carpish looking, but had no barbels on its mouth. Maybe a buffalo or drum?


There were about a dozen Gators (and BG and RES and Flatheads) in a big tank that you walk over the top of. One of them was enjoying this Cajun home theater system.


This Alligator Snapping Turtle is almost the size of a bushel basket and is supposed to weigh 148 pounds!


There is also a large marine fish section at the aquarium, including an ersatz coral reef that had at least some actual live coral in it, and these neat fish.


"See the fish in the reef
With the sharp, shiny teeth?
That's a Moray!"
(We got some funny looks from other aquarium goers for singing to the eel.)


The Newport Aquarium also features a nifty frog exhibit which has a number of poison arrow frogs, tree frogs, oddball North American frogs, and these Tomato Frogs (which actually get better than any tomato I've ever seen).


They have a walk-in aviary where you can feed (Australian) Lorikeets (take an umbrella!) and a small number of snakes including this rather large Burmese Python.


In my mind the biggest thrill was the shark tank, which is two stories tall and on the order of 3000 square feet in area. If you look in the back of this shot from a observation bubble, you can see the tunnel you walk underneath the sharks to get through.


There is a pretty neat sea turtle in with the sharks, rays, and other species of fish in the shark tank.


I don't know what this ugly guy is, although from the similarity his fins have to tuna, I suspect he may swim fairly fast. His face looked like Mr. Collier, the Vice Principal at my old High School.

The fish didn't have any hair, either.


There were several species of rays and about a dozen different kinds of sharks in the tank. The biggest shark was 8 or 9 feet long.

Feeding time for the sharks was 1:30 PM, but we saw three of them that helped themselves to some of their tankmates rather than wait for their scheduled lunch of squid and dead fish.


The last exhibit was a dry land/swimming tank penguin exhibit with Kings and Gentoos. FYI, feeding time for the penguins is 2:30 PM.


I would highly recommend the Newport Aquarium to any PM who can make it the Cincinnati area. I am sure you will have as big a blast as I did (it took me a week to winnow through the almost 360 pictures I took while we were there and get this post prepared). The rest of the family enjoyed it too.

Admission is $21 per person and tickets are available on line. Garage parking is located within a hundred yards or so of the Aquarium.