The Oceanografic of Valencia is the biggest public aquarium in Europe.
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It was built by the City of Arts and Sciences of Valencia and it’s an incredible structure. It had a park divided in different huge spaces and, even if it has few tanks, surely it has one enormous, unlike other public aquariums with more tanks.
The Oceanografic was opened to the public in February 14th 2003 and it has a surface of 110.000 square meters. It’s one of the biggest dolphinariums of the world with 26 million cubic meters of water and a depth of 10,5 meters.
6761 square meters of acrylic panels thick 33 cm. 150.000 square meters of cement and 15.000 tons of steel. There are even over 25 km of pipes with a diameter between 1.4 and 130 cm.
The first amazing thing entering the Oceanografic are the two structures with the fan shaped roofs (the restaurant and the entrance), designed by the architect Félix Candela.
We want now to guide you among all the things that is possible to see Oceanografic. At the end there will be also a beautiful 4K video with the top attractions. And, most important, in the video you will see the majesty of the reef.
The tanks at the entrance of the Oceanografic
Just come in the beautiful central building there’s the inferior floor where it’s possible to admire enormous and cylindrical aquariums with jellyfish.
It’s truly amazing. It can capture you for hours.
And then, surrounded by these aquariums, there’s a short but big tank with hammers sharks, eagle rays, skates fish, grey sharks. You can see some pictures, but the video will surely give you punctual idea of this tank.
An hammer shark upon the sunlight.
Hammer and grey shark.
Sharks are perfect and tireless hunters and it’s beautiful watch them swim in a tank enough large for offsprings. When they will grow up they will be moved in a tank that we’ll show you soon.
The reef
Now, within the various structures, directly connected with the central part, there’s the Reef, and it’s amazing.
First there are other cylindric aquariums with some anemone and fish.
The sizes are speechless: in the foreground there’s a beautiful example of Ophiura incrassata. Obviously with the anemone there are clownfishes (anemonefishes) and Chrisiptera.
But the real attraction is the Reef.
That one here upon is just the central part. There are two aquariums which are laterally developed for 30 meters and then they converge in the part in the picture. This enlightened view allows to see the beautiful corals.
Here upon there’s a Montipora (capricornis, probabily) of a very big size. A couple of clowfishes Ampiphrion ocellaris and some Pseudanthias squamipinnis.
From a closer view you an see other specimens: Stylophora, Seriatopora, Acropora; and other fish: Chromis viridis and Zabrasoma flavescens.
Surely is also noteworthy this Tridacna derasa. It’s very big, but you can really estimate its dimensions by watching the video.
Int he central part you can better see a Seriatopora Caliendrum, and a Stylophora pistillata “Milka“.
Zoanthus and Discosomi are on the left of the tank, but there are also some Trachyphillie on the sand. Zebrasoma are present in a very high number.
We aren’t talking about the reef right now, but was also beautiful the emerged tank with a lot of beautiful specimens of Cerianthus membranaceus.
Penguins, Flamingos, Crocodiles and Dolphins
The tank for penguins is very big. Obviously it’s a thermic type which divides their cold environment from ours (35 degrees!!!).
That’s why there were a condensate which had penalized our pictures.
In a open space we could watch pink flamingos…
…and right next to them there was a crocodile…
It was all well combined with the surrounding environment.
We have mentioned that it was one of the biggest dolphinariums in the world. Both the structure and the exhibition were absolutely amazing.
The show itself was beautiful and well planned.
Jellyfish
Jellyfish are a trend in development even in Italy. And the Oceanografic Valencia gave them the right space.
There were many portholes dedicated to jellyfish and also proper aquariums. Here there’re some photos.
Beautiful even the Mediterranean aquariums.
The dimensions are still very big.
The Arctic part with the Beluga
The arctic zone had very beautiful aquariums, among which the one with the Beluga.
The tank with the warluses was also very interesting.
Sharks, sharks and sharks
And now it’s the moment of the top attraction of the Oceanografic, the majestic and beautiful sharks’ tank.
Imagine to enter a semicircular structure with sharks and similars, and then go on through a tunnel of about 30 meters which leads to a semicircular tank, contening hammers sharks, carpet sharks, blacktip sharks, grey sharks, eagle rays and many others. Don’t miss the video at the end of the article!
A sand tiger shark view from below seems a white shark.
Grey shark.
Carpet shark.
Sand tiger sharks.
Here below in the picture there’s what seems a huge bag to fit the fish to the new aquarium.
The video in 4K UHD about the Oceanografic Valencia
It’s the time of the awaited video of the Oceanografic. If you can, watch it in a dark room and at full screen.
Hope you like it.
Conclusions
We have forgotten some things.
We didn’t talk about the huge aviary with the butterflies. It takes guided visits every 15 minutes. We didn’t visit it. It seems much more interesting the aviary with multicolored birds.
It allows to enter inside but the queue was too long.
We visited the cinema 4D but it wasn’t a good choice. We watched a spanish cartoon about marine depths but we thought it was a documentary. The entrance isn’t free and it doesn’t add anything to the experience of the Oceanografic.
The entrance ticket costs 29,10 euro. If you have also the VLC for moving in Valencia with the public transports you can have a reduction of 20%. It’s a right price for the 3-4 hours required for a complete visit of the Oceanografic.
We firmly suggest to see it. It’s one of the most beautiful public aquariums that I have ever seen. Just the sharks’ tank and the reef worth the visit.
Here‘s the official site of the Oceanografic of Valencia.
