Ripley’s aquarium opens

It took two years and $130 million to make it happen and now Toronto has the largest indoor aquarium in the country. Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada opened to the public Wednesday. It’s home to more than 13,000 aquatic animals, which are held in six million litres of water. The new site it located at the base of the CN Tower. Cindy Csordas has the details.

I’m on the shores of Lake Ontario in Burlington because just behind me is an entire underwater world that most of us don’t get to see or experience. But now we can, because among the many attractions at the new Ripley’s Aquarium in Toronto is a great lakes exhibit.

Anthony Smith was one of the early visitors: “It was really amazing, beautifully designed aquarium. I’ve been to a number of them and I’m proud we have one in Toronto. It’s beautiful.”

The Ripley’s Aquarium opened it’s doors to the public for the first time in Toronto. The exhibits get you up close and personal with the aquatic animals. You can walk below a shark, crawl into tight spaces where fish swim around you and if you want to get touchy feely, there are stingrays and horseshoe crabs at touch pools.

Melanie and Mary Glogowski came from Collingwood: “We learned about their legs, learned how to tell male from female, their mouth is underneath their body, we saw where they eat.”

Ripley’s Aquarim has 45 tanks on display featuring mostly fish and 2 green sea turtles.

Mike and Sawyer Mattioli came from Binbrook: “Sawyer loves fish of all kinds so we wanted to come see the sharks and turtles.”

William Smith was a birthday boy: “What do you think? Awesome!!! Why? Cuz of the sharks.”

Christian Aleman was also celebrating a birthday: “Sharks! Why? Because they’re dangerous. I think they’re cool.”

And one young man loved the jellyfish: “Ohhhhh, These ones change colour!”

Peter Doyle is the General Manger of the aquarium: “We have a great combo of entertainment and education so as we say, we are real and we’re fun.”

There was no questioning the fun to be had here, but some other concerns did float to the surface.

16-year old Katherine Smith: “I was noticing some of the plants and rocks are fake and I was wondering how that affects the animals.. You also learn about like the insides like how sharks swallow garbage and stuff so it brings awareness to the environment so you won’t throw trash in the water.”

So the cost of getting an up close look at the fish you may find right here in Lake Ontario or from 3 oceans from around the world is $29.98 for adults or $19.98 for kids. Another interesting thing they do there is have sleepovers, similar to the Ontario Science Centre. You can sleep in the “Dangerous Lagoon” shark tunnel. For more information on that, you can visit: <http://www.ripleyaquariums.com/canada/>