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EveryFish

Aquarium or research, Japan

Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan

A large aquarium on Osaka Bay built around the Pacific Rim, with a central tank holding whale sharks.

Kaiyukan opened in 1990 at Tempozan Harbour Village on Osaka Bay. Visitors start at the top floor and spiral down around a huge central tank representing the Pacific Ocean, about 9 metres deep and holding around 5,400 cubic metres of water. Smaller tanks around it show habitats of the Pacific Rim, from Japan's forests to the Great Barrier Reef and the Antarctic.

The Pacific Ocean tank

The central tank holds whale sharks, the largest fish, along with rays, schools of fish and other sharks. Kaiyukan has kept whale sharks since it opened, and it also runs a research programme on them, fitting tags to whale sharks released into the sea. The ocean sunfish is shown in a separate tank, where its strange, tall shape can be seen up close.

The Ring of Fire design

The aquarium is built around the idea of the Pacific Ring of Fire, the belt of volcanoes and earthquakes around the ocean, and the life of the Pacific. Its tanks follow a journey from the surface to the deep, so visitors see the same animals at different depths. Like other large aquariums, it has faced debate over keeping wide-ranging animals such as whale sharks in tanks.

Fish of Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan

Whale sharkKept in the Pacific Ocean tank

Still to be written: Ocean sunfish, Scalloped hammerhead.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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