Lazy Sunday

Well today was the first time that I have had a day off while on the road. Even so, I still worked a little bit today. I stopped in at a place called Reef Pets near the DFW airport. These guys are only open on Saturday and Sunday. They dont stock any dry goods, which was a bummer, but had an amazing selection of livestock. Gary, the owner of the shop, was a very nice guy, who had mentioned that times were slow, but he has been doing well with his online and ebay sales of coral frags. He had a bunch of stuff that I wanted to bring home with me, but seeing as how I would have to keep it at the hotel for 4 days, I decided to pass, and will instead try and put an order together to have shipped to me at some other time.

After leaving Reef Pets, I decided to check out the Dallas World Aquarium. What a really cool surprise! A beautiful aquarium that was amazingly put together and extremely interactive with some very interesting livestock including toucans, monkeys, reptiles, manatees, and jaguars!

Exterior of the Dallas World Aquarium

DWA's very cool logo, including a mandarin and a tang!

An amazingly colorful Paradise Tanager

Gorgeous waterfall towering 3 stories in the main atrium!

Can you say..."My Goodness....My Guinness!"?

A huge crocodile, that was in a giant pool with Red Bellied Pirahana! I hope none of the free flying birds ever manage to fall in there!

Its a bad pic, but these two Hawk-headed Parrots were hillarious. A boy and a girl nestled in their box, eating dinner, talking about the most recent episode of Vampire Diaries!

What a face! These 3 Arrau turtles were all hanging out basking under their heat lamp!

Another cool shot of the waterfall, and some of the amazing foliage in the tropical atrium!

A HUGE freshwater turtle, the size of your coffee table!

A MANATEE! Yay! Here you go Lindsey!

A school of giant Red-Tailed Catfish hovering in synch, watching all of the weirdos pass by.

A blurry pic of 2 passing Arapaima, easily the size of a Prius! I hope they dont have acceleration issues!

Manatee close up!

And finally to the saltwater tanks! The salt tanks were all set up by locale which I thought was very interesting.

Lord Howe Island biotope, surprisingly without any Acanthatstrea LORD-HOWEnsis! However with 8 Conspiculatus angelfish, which were stunning! Corals included mostly chalices.

Close up of one of the 8 amazing Conspiculatus Angels. Crazy to think that these fish command a retail price of $1300-$2000 each!

In the same Lord Howe biotope tank, they had a trio of McCullochi Clowns that were hosting in a Blue Carpet Anemone, and upon further inspection, appeared to be either guarding a clutch of eggs, or prepping for the deposition of a new clutch! Sorry for the poor picture quality.

Solomon Islands biotope tank with 3 HUGE Gigas clams!

Fiji biotope tank with lots of anemones, and LPS corals

Southern Australia biotope tank, with a bunch of Weedy Seadragons!

New Guinea biotope tank with AMAZING fields of Duncanopsammia coral!

Sri Lanka biotope tank with Powder Blue Tangs, Moorish Idols, and Yellow Rhinopias!

My favorite aquascape of all was in the Indonesia biotope tank. Rose anemones, favias, chalices, Blue Hippo Tangs, and Mystery Wrasses were abound here!

A fungia in the Indonesia tank that is in the process of forming Anthoucali (baby making coral farms) after having been stung repeatedly by the torch coral in the upper right edge of the pic.

British Columbia biotope tank featuring a Giant Pacific Octopus, and lots of Anemones and Stars

The Japan biotope tank had tons of Acros and SPS corals as well as Bellus Angelfish, Lineatus Fairy Wrasses, and Cuttlefish!

A pair of Helmeted Basilisks getting cozy under their heat lamp.

A whole group of Pink Flamingos, whose area is located on a ledge above the shark pen. Hopefully these guys never get the urge to explore their surroundings!

Black-footed Penguins in their outdoor enclosure. The one standing up would honk at people as they passed by!

And that wraps up the pics from my visit! Tomorrow I am back in the shops, so I will see you then!

Cheers~!