Filter Feeder Exhibit

The Filter Feeder exhibit highlights the hardest working animals of the aquatic realm. Mostly sessile, they constantly strain the water using specialized appendages for phytoplankton, small animals like copepods, and detritus. Filter feeders like anemones and corals capture prey using feeding tentacles that containing nematocysts (stinging cells). Feathery worms capture food by fanning the water with their mucus-covered tentacles. 

SYSTEM CHARACTERISTICS

The Filter Feeders exhibit is a 50-gallon cylindrical tank that is part of a 3,000-gallon recirculating temperate system that connects many of our temperate-water exhibits. The water temperature is kept at approximately 63 degrees Fahrenheit (17 degrees C), a salinity of 35 ppt, a pH near 8.1 and has two airlines to increase dissolved oxygen concentrations. The temperate filtration system that this tank is a part of includes a central sump, a biomedia sump, a main and emergency chiller, a large protein skimmer, a fluidized sand filter, a Polygeyser bead filter, a UV sterilizer, a macroalgae reactor, a wet-dry trickle filter, filter socks and two cartridge filters that can house activated carbon, diatomaceous earth, granular ferric oxide, or nitrogen sponge media.

SPECIES PROFILE

The hardest working animals of the aquatic realm are the filter feeders. Mostly sessile, they constantly strain the water using specialized appendages for phytoplankton, small animals like copepods, and detritus. Filter feeders like anemones and corals capture prey using feeding tentacles that containing nematocysts (stinging cells). Feathery worms capture food by fanning the water with their mucus-covered tentacles. 

Water type: Temperate marine

Exhibit Size: 50 gallons