Fresh Sheet – November 13, 2009

“Fresh Sheet” is our weekly shipment report of pupae on display in the emerging window. Visit Pacific Science Center’s Tropical Butterfly House and meet our newest residents.


El Salvador

40 - Caligo memnon (Owl Butterfly)
15 - Colobura dirce (Mosaic butterfly)
30 - Consul fabius (Tiger Leafwing)
08 - Heliconius erato (Small Postman)
14 - Heliconius ismenius (Ismenius Longwing)
100 - Morpho peleides (Blue Morpho)
25 - Myselia cyaniris (Blue Wave Butterfly)
40 - Myscelia ethusa (Royal Blue Butterfly)
20 - Papilio pilumnus (Three-tailed Swallowtail)
05 - Tithorea harmonia (Harmonia Tigerwing)

Los Angeles

17 - Charaxes brutus (White-barred Charaxes)
02 - Charaxes candiope (Green-veined Charaxes)
04 - Charaxes castor (Giant Charaxes)
07 - Charaxes cithaeron (Blue-spotted Charexes)
08 - Charaxes protoclea (Flame-bordered Charexes)
10 - Charaxes violetta (Violet-spotted Emperor)
22 - Danaus genutia (Common Tiger)
05 - Euphaedra neophron (Gold-banded Forester)
04 - Euxanthes wakefieldi (Forest Queen)
08 - Graphium agamemnon (Tailed Jay)
40 - Hypolimnas bolina (Great Eggfly)
14 - Papilio helenus (Red Helen)
20 - Papilio lowii (Sunset Swallowtail)
20 - Papilio memnon (Great Mormon)
08 - Papilio nephelus (Yellow Helen)
14 - Papilio nireus (Blue-banded Swallowtail)
19 - Papilio polytes (Polite swallowtail)
10 - Papilio rumanzovia (Crimson Swallowtail)
14 - Parthenos sylvia lilacinus (Blue Clipper)
04 - Parthenos sylvia philppensis (The Clipper)

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Tide Pool Etiquette - Part 1

If you’ve ever been to the Puget Sound Saltwater Tide Pool at Pacific Science Center, you know the first thing you must do to touch anything is rinse your hands. Now why do you think we have to rinse our hands?




Most aquariums with touch tanks don’t ask visitors to do this! However, most aquariums, including the Seattle Aquarium, have a different filtration system than we do. Many waterfront aquariums use filtered seawater, drawing the water up from a nearby source, cycling it through their systems, and returning it to the source after treating it to destroy any possible contaminants. But at Pacific Science Center, our water is continually recirculated within the tide pool and two filtration vats. Imagine getting soap into the water! The soap would circulate through the tide pool which would be very unfortunate for our animals; this would also apply to other substances! Sunscreen, lotions and even metals can harm the animals. Not only do our visitors rinse their hands, our staff does too. We try to keep our water as free of foreign products as possible.


People don’t always think about sea creatures as living animals. For instance, sea anemones look like plants. We often think of plants as a pretty little object we could carry around, we can’t do that with sea anemones. Our animals need water to live so their habitats are perfect the way they are! Furthermore, it is best to only touch an animal gently instead of trying to pick it up and take it home.

With a good understanding of the Puget Sound Saltwater Tide Pool habitat, we can next discuss the proper way to handle our critters. Watch this space for a future article!

Nancy, the author of this article, is a Volunteer and a Discovery Corps Internship Graduate. In August she reported on the Tide Pool Guide.

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Fresh Sheet - November 6, 2009

“Fresh Sheet” is our weekly shipment report of pupae on display in the emerging window. Visit Pacific Science Center’s Tropical Butterfly House and meet our newest residents.



07 - Anartia fatima (Banded Peacock)
07 - Archeoprepona demophon (One-spotted Prepona)
13 - Battus polydamas (Polydamus Swallowtail)
07 - Caligo atreus (Yellow-Edged Giant-Owl)
22 - Caligo eurilochus (Forest Giant Owl)
14 - Caligo memnon (Owl Butterfly)
09 - Catonephele numilia (Numilia)
07 - Catonephele orites (Orange-banded shoemaker)
23 - Danaus plexippus (The Monarch)
20 - Dryas iulia (Julia Longwing)
14 - Greta oto (Glasswing)
06 - Hamadryas amphinome (Red Cracker)
17 - Hamadryas feronia (Variable Cracker)
17 - Heliconius charitonius (Zebra Longwing)
11 - Heliconius cydno (Cydno Longwing)
21 - Heliconius doris (Doris Longwing)
25 - Heliconius hecale (Tiger Longwing)
26 - Heliconius ismenius (Ismenius Longwing)
23 - Heliconius melpomene (Postman)
16 - Heraclides anchisiades (Ruby-spotted Swallowtail)
07 - Hypna clytemnestra (Silver-studded Leafwing)
11 - Mechanitis polymnia (Polymnia Tigerwing)
35 - Morpho peleides (Blue Morpho)
02 - Opsiphanes tamarindi (Tamarind Owl)
07 - Papilio androgeus (Androgeus Swallowtail)
29 - Siproeta stelenes (Malachite)
07 - Tithorea tarricina (Cream-Spotted Clearwing)

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Inside the Tide Pool

Behind the painted wall of the Puget Sound Saltwater Tide Pool touch tank, a pump, chiller and two large vats work nonstop to circulate, cool, and filter the water. Just like most home aquarists, we do a partial water change each week. And like many, we back-flush our pipes and filter media to keep them clean and operational.




Sometimes routine care is not enough, and we need to do some special maintenance to keep our system working its best. After the September full clean, the tide pool looked great, but changing out so much sand and water had diminished our population of beneficial bacteria.

To help foster new beneficials, we never clean both the touch tank area and our filtration vats at the same time; we try to leave at least six weeks between the two jobs. This keeps a reservoir of good bacteria, most of them lodged in floating Bio Balls that provide lots of surface area for helpful organisms to grow.



Unfortunately, the same surface area acts as a trap for lint, dust, hair, glitter, undigested food and sloughed material from the sea creatures, and a host of other unwanted debris. This waste drifts to the bottom of the vat, clogs the manifold that draws water into the pump, and therefore slows down water circulation. So after the six weeks elapsed, we knew the vat was ready for a little cleaning.

First the Bio Balls were lifted out of the vat to allow access to the water below. Note that the water in the touch tank area was perfectly clean looking, but the vat had accumulated enough solids to make it hard to see the bottom.






Next, the cloudy water, along with precipitated solids, was siphoned out of the vat. The last bit had to be cleaned out by hand.


At this point we could reach the manifold, which desperately needed cleaning. The manifold’s job is to allow water into the pump without allowing solids to get sucked in and possibly damage the machinery. The screen material that should let water through had become filled with particles and was causing the water to slow down. A good, hard rinse dislodged the gunk and the manifold was back in business.



We never use anything but water, salt and elbow grease to clean objects in the tide pool; soap and other cleaners can be deadly to the animals.


Putting the system back together is always easier than taking it apart. The manifold and Bio Balls were returned to the vat. Then we added enough synthetic sea water to make up for what we siphoned out. Through the rest of the day, we monitored the temperature, salinity, and circulation. Everything looked good, and by the end of the day, our system was back in business.



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