This is our largest tank, 4 metres deep and containing over 120 tonnes of sea water! It is home to some of our largest, predatory fish including our Cod, Pollack, Wrasse and small Sharks. It is situated on the ground floor, but can also be viewed from above. At any one time their can be over 200 animals in this tank, with a combined mass of a quarter of a tonne.

See what is happening in our Ocean Tank right now. Click here to access the Ocean Tank webcam.

It takes 7 kilos of squid, herring and crab a day to keep all the animals in the Ocean Tank fed: that’s over 2 tonnes of raw food a year!

The Ocean Tank is part of the main salt water system, but also has its own high-pressure sand filter, which helps keep the water crystal clear. It is run at room temperature during the winter, and the water temperature can fall as low as 10°C in February. During the warm summer months, the water is run through a special chiller, which cools it, preventing it from going any higher than 16°C. If we didn’t have a chiller, the water temperature could reach as high as 20°C, which would be too warm for many of our fish such as the Cod and Halibut.

The Ocean Tank is so large, that a diver needs to go in to clean it. We do this about once a month; to clean the glass on the inside, pick up any debris that may have collected on the bottom, and generally check that the tank is clean and healthy. At the moment we have fourteen different species of native Irish fish in the Ocean Tank, including five species of Shark. There are also several types of Crab living in the Tank: like in most of our tanks these act as cleaners, scavenging on scraps of uneaten food, which is a great help keeping in the tank hygienic!