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New arrivals at the aquarium

Written by Staff Reporter
Wednesday, 23 July 2008

Last week saw the addition of some new fish to Galway Atlantaquaria's Exhibits, after they were caught in Fenit, Co Kerry.

According to staff from the aquarium, rays such as these are relatively common around the southwest coast but rarely venture as far north as Galway. The three undulate rays settled into their new home immediately. They appear to have travelled well and are feeding happily in the aquarium.

The largest was introduced directly into the ray pool, where it is swimming happily with the other fish, including the juvenile white skate. The two smaller undulates will be introduced to this tank over the coming days. All the undulates still have a good bit to grow; they can grow up to twenty pounds in weight. They are often considered to be one of the more striking rays that are found around the Irish coast due to their beautiful markings.

The stingray is a little more skittish than the undulates, and staff at the aquarium have yet to see it feed. It is planned to continue to observe it for the next few days and then to transfer it to the ocean tank display this weekend. There, it will have plenty of room to swim around and the public will be out of reach of its poisonous spine. The stingray is roughly five pounds in weight, a relative baby as they can grow to over seventy pounds in weight.

All the rays were caught on mackerel and squid baits. In the aquarium they will be fed on a diet of squid, mackerel and herring supplemented with crabs. Other rays currently on exhibit in the aquarium include painted rays, spotted rays and thornback rays - the most widespread ray in Galway bay.

Folks,

Brought my nephew and 2 nieces to the aquarium last week ( 9, 5 & 3) and they really enjoyed it in spite of their not knowing anything about fish! This post are for those 'uncles', aunts', 'babysitters' in the Galway area who have a couple of kids to entertain and are struggling for ideas......

kom

Thats nice to hear komalley.

The stingray just started feeding this week, it took her a few weeks to settle in but now she has started feeding thats a major hurdle out of the way.

It was amazing to see all the undulate rays settle in immediately while the stingray was much warier, even though all had been caught and transported in the same manner.

Otherwise we are just keeping an eye on our temperatures at the moment and trying to find time to collect the small fish species that become available locally at this time of year

You wouldn't have had to go far to collect 10,000 mackeral last night..... i spent an hour sitting on the prom outside your door watching 1000's of fry trying not to get eaten. It was like the Blue Planet dvd live!

i was there too,anyone see the porpoise 30 ft off the shore,stopped fishing for about half an hour,amazing to look at