The caretaker of the live coral aquarium (Neal Isaacs) gave a classroom presentation on the coral reef aquarium at Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies.

This aquarium is 1600 gallons with only 250 lbs of live rock which is now in the sump. This system has a 7ft protein skimmer and a calcium reactor loaded with crushed coral. The aquarium has much open space with the back and side walls covered by white cement and portions of live rock.

Water movement is provided by two 1hp pool pumps which provide more than 80 gallons/minute of flow that is directed to specific areas by adjustable openings from a manifold.

Lighting is predominantly metal halide with two 1000W bulbs and two 400W bulbs, including 20,000K, 6,500K and 10,000K.

Inhabitants include a variety of fish, stoney coral, soft coral, Tridacna clams and other invertebrates.

A tour of the reef tank was lead by Neal, including an awesome behind the tank top down view. There is a propagation tank recently started which contains several frags

A tour behind the scenes of the main aquarium systems was lead by Tara, one of the marine biologists. We began in a building behind the main building that contains numerous quarantine tanks. This building contained a wide variety of animals from jellyfish, to sea dragons to large SHARKS. We then saw the transport system to take the large animals in to the main building (shark taxi?). The food preparation and other support areas of the main building were also toured.

After this more than full day, the club members present decided to tour the remainder of the display. Therefore, no regular ETRC business was conducted.