Excitement continues to mount on our campus as we anticipate the March 7 opening of our all-new Scuttlebutt Reef gallery.

In the previous episode of the show, we took a top-level view of this exciting collection of habitats. This week, we’re zeroing in on what could be described as the gallery’s “centerpiece”: a massive, 6,000-gallon living reef exhibit.

This bustling aquatic community was designed and built fromscratch by two of our aquarists, who join us on the episode about halfway through the construction process (at the time of recording). We chat about species selection, the challenges of caring for coral and the many other steps involved in designing a reef that’s pleasant for the animals to live in and for our guests to visit.

Check out the previous, overview episode on Scuttlebutt Reef here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0XrC5hE2A3P9Rte8yxFr46?si=3bf282f7ccdc4973

Watch the first of our two-part video docu-series about theconstruction of this exhibit: https://youtu.be/6aqTBv8YMSo

Episode Cast

• Casey Phillips, host/senior communicationsspecialist
• Kyle McPheeters, life support systems lead aquarist
• Sarah Kate Bailey, aquarist II

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[Episode cover art is of a War Coral (Favites pentagona) and was taken by Communications Content Creator II Doug Strickland.]