In today’s “Museum Monday” video, we watch a time-lapse as a coral reef aquarium is set up in the Natural History Museum’s Jerwood Gallery. This aquarium will be featured in their upcoming exhibition where the public can learn about the importance of marine coral reef communities.
As a lifelong fish keeper and aquascaper, my love for tropical fishes strongly influenced my love for the sciences. As a young child, my aquarium was one of my inspirations: the water test kit was a solid introduction to water chemistry; designing and building better and better water filter systems gave me an early love for drawing detailed plans, for maths and for engineering; and all the magical creatures whose lives I was determined to observe and to safeguard inspired me to pursue a career in the sciences.
Keeping aquariums often goes hand-in-hand with aquascaping -- creating beautiful underwater worlds that captivate and delight -- and keeping marine coral reef aquariums is typically viewed as the pinnacle of aquaristic achievement. But aquascaped coral reef aquariums are more than just a piece of living art: they provide a tiny glimpse into one of the most important of all marine ecosystems. In fact, coral reefs are home to almost one in four of all known marine creatures. But why are coral reefs so rich and diverse?
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