Opening of world's biggest aquariumangers our community of tropical fish

Atlanta soon will open a huge window onto the sea with the Nov. 23 opening of the Georgia Aquarium, the world's largest aquarium. That has our community fish angry and worried -- worried about having to share the spotlight with such a massive new aquarium (pictured at right).

"I'm pretty well ticked off," said Aubrey the molly. "Who's going to care about the world's biggest molly when they can go to Atlanta and see the world's largest indoor aquarium. How will we compete? We can't. There's just no way. I tell you I'm mad as hell."

The Georgia Aquarium holds more than 8 million gallons of water and has the capacity to house more than 100,000 fish. That is a huge leap in size and capacity over the next largest aquarium -- Chicago's Shedd, which holds 5 million gallons of water to support 20,000 aquatic animals. Paled even more by comparison is our aquarium, which holds 70 gallons of water and can support as many as 40 fish.

All of our fish see this new aquarium as a direct threat to their popularity, and they are not happy about it, as we at Freshwater Adventures learned during our fish-on-the-street interviews.

"Someone ought to put a crack in that thing," said one glass catfish who refused to be identified. "It's just too big, too fast. It's a waste of money and a drain on the economy. The world just doesn't need an aquarium that big. If people want to see that many fish, let them jump in the damn ocean."

Jeff Swanagan, executive director of the Georgia Aquarium, isn't afraid of the criticism.

"We want to be the world's most engaging aquarium," Swanagan said recently. "We tried to use music and drama -- theater as well as science -- to achieve a connection between man and fish."

Our plecostomus wasn't sold on the idea, however.

"I'll give him a human to fish connection," the algae eater said. "How about my fist and his face? How's that for a connection?"

Perhaps our fish's fears are justified. The Georgia Aquarium expects 2.4 million visitors in the first year who will bring $1 billion into the city over the next five years. That's compared to our aquarium, which has 2.4 visitors each day who, frankly, have never paid a dime for the experience.

We sense troubled waters ahead. Indeed.