News

Fish fans celebrate reopening of aquarium

Fans celebrate with Batman and Batgirl.

By Bill Moss, Published: May 14, 2016

Fish fans and aquatic critter aficionados rushed through the door of Team ECCO Ocean Center and Aquarium on Saturday afternoon, celebrating the reopening of the downtown fish showcase 10 weeks after a flood heavily damaged the building and killed many of the star attractions.

Aquarium founder BJ Ramer thanked the city, the Tourism Development Authority, the Community Foundation and other private donors who had contributed money to help the facility make repairs and buy replacement fish and other aquatic animals.

"We're still having to add some," said Kortney Clark, who does education for Team ECCO. "We're still losing some."

Batman (John Carver) and Batgirl (Clark) received a police escort and pulled up in a Batmobile shortly before 2 p.m.

Jerry Glenn Owens and his daughter, Faith Ann, look at fish.In the early morning hours of Feb. 25, Ramer had an intuition that was something was wrong at the center. When she arrived around 6:30, she found herself wading in angle-deep water. Water from a water heater in the condo above had caused part of he ceiling to collapse. Worse, the water had rained down into saltwater fish tanks, contaminating the habitat and killing many fish. The aquarium had 70 species before the flood and has not regained that many yet.

Clark said she was glad that the donations and volunteer work had helped the Ocean Center open in time for the summer tourism season.

"This is our busiest time," she said.

One of the donors who helped get the aquarium back on its feet was David Segal, who owns Mountain Aquatics in Fletcher. He donated about $500 worth of saltwater.

"I just heard about what happened and thought of what we could do," he said. "I believe in what she's doing here."