A Day In The Life Of: A Jellyfish Keeper

Monday, March 23, 2009

I am so excited to bring you all the very first 'Day in the Life' post! I hope this can be a regular feature on my blog. Be sure to leave your comments and enjoy!


Name: Chad Widmer
Title: Senior Aquarist
Employer: Monterey Bay Aquarium

No, Chad doesn't chase after jellies with a net like Spongebob, but he does have a pretty awesome job. As a Senior Aquarist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Chad is responsible for thousands of jellyfish including about 20 different species.


"I didn’t start out in life wanting to be a jellyfish aquarist, but I did know I wanted to be a marine biologist."
- Chad Widmer


However, marine biology doesn't just encompass mammals and fish. 95% of the world's animals are invertebrates, or animals without backbones. Widmer's penchant for invertebrates led him to a unique opening in the jellyfish gallery at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

At first, working with jellies wasn't a permanent career choice for him, but he soon "realized how much opportunity there was for new scientists." The past ten years have been full of opportunities for Widmer such as: publishing in scientific journals, appearing on 15 different television programs, discovering new jellyfish species, and even writing a book.


The aquarium's Drifters Gallery is the largest permanent collection of jellyfish species in the United States. The exhibit's 15 windows showcase jellies native to Monterey Bay, California. There's more than meets the eye to this exhibit. Behind the scenes are thousands of jellyfish. Widmer even grows his own jellies starting with laboratory cultures. Only the best looking groups of jellyfish go on display. "The ones you may see here today could be different than the ones you saw here last time, or the next time you visit," Widmer said.

A Typical Day:
  • First, Chad checks his email and voicemail, grabs some coffee and a canteen of water and heads to the Drifters Gallery.
  • Then, he evaluates the health of the animals and determines what maintenance is necessary. "It is my goal to provide a jellyfish exhibit with the best looking and healthiest display jellyfish in the entire world," Widmer said.

  • Next, Chad spends about two hours getting the exhibits ready for display. Typically, this involves wiping diatoms and gunk off the inside of the exhibit windows.
  • Sometimes he deep cleans the exhibit. This process involves:
    - Removing all of the animals and draining the sea water from the tank
    - Refilling it with fresh water and 2-3 gallons of bleach to disinfect it
    - Neutralizing the bleach, draining, rinsing, and refilling the tank with sea water
    - Rebalancing the currents, adding the animals, and checking on their health

  • During the day he also harvests live food for the exhibits and gallery. "Feeding them all and lots and lots of cultures is hard work!"

  • He's not always in the aquarium. Sometimes he goes boating to look for additional jellies or to collect wild plankton to feed the exhibit animals. Also, he collects kelp for the sea otters to play with.

Best Part of the Job:

For Chad, seeing the end results of all his hard work is the best part of the job. After growing a batch of jellyfish from scratch and putting them on exhibit, he enjoys watching people take pictures of them. Widmer estimates over 12 million people have seen his work in person, and countless others on television.


"I really like that, it's how you know you've done a good job - when people get out their cameras to forever remember your work in their family photo albums."
- Chad Widmer


Worst Part of the Job:


Perhaps the one downside to the job is getting stung "almost every day." Depending on what type of jellyfish, you might not feel it at all. A medium strength jellyfish sting feels like "a slow burn that grows steadily, accompanied by itching." Widmer compares it to "rubbing up against some fiberglass or stinging nettles." If you do get stung, he recommends vinegar and a topical antihistamine lotion like Benadryl. Otherwise, you'll feel a stinging sensation again if you shower or you may possibly wake up in the night from itchiness.


Most Unusual Part of the Job:

"Everything about working with jellyfish is unusual."
- Chad Widmer

For Widmer, the weirdest part of his experience was working with different television film crews. Out of the 15 programs, some of his favorites include Mythbusters and the BBC.

Somehow in between maintaining the exhibits, discovering new jellies, and appearing on tv shows Widmer found the time to write a book, How to Keep Jellyfish in Aquariums: An Introductory Guide for Maintaining Healthy Jellies. The book aims to answer the questions that he frequently receives from professional aquarists, entrepreneurs, and people who want jellyfish as pets.



Wonder what Chad's favorite jellyfish is?



Although he says he likes them all, he chose the Crystal jellyfish, or Aequorea victoria, for a tattoo. "It's just good looking," said Widmer. He also is fond of the new to science discoveries he made such as Amphinema rollinsi, named after Henry Rollins. Soon he will name a recent discovery after his nieces.



People Would Be Surprised
To Know That:

"Jellyfish exhibit an entire range of behaviors based on what their environment is like at the time...They aren't just passively drifting through the water column as has been reported."
- Chad Widmer

Food, light, darkness, and other stimuli impact their behavior. Widmer is developing a protocol to test the idea that jellyfish can be trained to do something.

Another current project of Widmer's is looking for new deep sea jellies and methodical describing them and their life cycles for scientific journals. One day he hopes to become a professor of marine biology at a junior college.


Definitely check out Chad's website for jellyfish pictures, blog posts, and how you can start your own jellyfish aquarium. You can also follow his updates on twitter @jellykeeping101.

All pictures courtesy of Chad Widmer


A Far-Out Fish - Fresh Catch Friday

Friday, March 20, 2009

Credit: AP


Hope you all are having a grooovy Friday! Today's Fresh Catch will definitely make your mind trip. Meet Histiophryne psychedelica, aka Psychedlica, a frogfish with beige and peach stripes and blue eyes.



Credit: AP



In an almost drunken matter, this fish uses its legs and gills to propel itself through the water. The end result is a bit like Flubber underwater. While frogfish are pretty well-known, none have as colorful patterns or bounce through the water. Discovered in Indonesia a year ago, Psychedelica was identified as a new species thanks to University of Washington professor Ted Pietsch's DNA tests.

You can learn more about the fish and see it swim in the video below!


Go Green For St. Patrick's Day - Fish Friendly Tips

Tuesday, March 17, 2009



Happy St. Patrick's Day to all! You don't have to be Irish to go green today. Here are some easy eco-friendly things you can do to help preserve marine life.

1. Eat Sustainable Seafood


Think "there's plenty of fish in the sea"? Think again! According to a 2003 report published in the journal, Nature, within the past 15 years of industrial fishing we have depleted "nearly 90% of our ocean's large predatory fish." That figure doesn't even include all of the fish thrown away as bycatch or those killed by pollution.

You can help by eating sustainable seafood which is harvested in limited quantities from carefully managed stocks. This prevents species from becoming over-fished while preserving their marine habitat. The Monterey Bay Aquarium has a great site with more information about the issues, regional guides to which types of seafood are ocean friendly, a sushi guide, and even a iPhone App you can download to help you make sustainable choices when dining out.


2. Recycle Cans and Bottles

When the party's over, don't forget to recycle all your beer cans and bottles that you drink today. Recycling helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, saves energy, saves natural resources.

  • In 2006, recycling of cans and bottles in the Twin Cities metro area reduced greenhouse gas emissions equal to taking 125,000 cars off the road.*

  • Recycling a single aluminum can saves enough energy to power a television for three hours. In total, metro area recycling of metal, glass and plastics in 2006 saved enough energy to heat over 78,000 houses for the year.*

  • Recycling aluminum reduces water consumption and air pollutants by 95 %. Making glass from recycled material cuts water pollution by 50%.*
*Rethink Recycling


3. Don't Use Plastic Bags or Bottles


Photo: Melbourne Zoo

Next time you buy groceries, consider bringing your own canvas bags. You will be doing your part to reduce the 500 billion to a trillion plastic bags that are used every year worldwide.

An estimated 30 billion become litter and end up in the oceans, which many marine animals, like sea turtles, mistake for food.

10% of your purchase of these tote bags goes to protect sea turtles.


4. Reduce Your Water Use

While 80% of our planet is water, don't think of it as a renewable resource. We are using up fresh water faster than it can be replenished naturally. This means more energy used and emissions generated from water treatment plants.

You can conserve water by:
  • Reducing your shower time
  • Installing a low-flow showerhead
  • Fixing a leaking toliet (saves 140 gallons of water/week)
  • Turning off the tap when brushing your teeth (Saves 80% of water used)

5. Use Eco-Friendly Cleaning Products


Many cleaning products contain harmful chemicals that end up in the soil or waterways. Choose "green" soaps, detergents, and cleansers that are water based with low volatile organic compound (VOC). I am a big fan of the Method line at Target.

Here are some more natural laundry detergents and dish washing soaps.

Crafty Coral

Monday, March 9, 2009


Look closely at this stunning display of coral. Notice anything unusual? Everything you see here is actually made out of yarn. It's part of the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef Project. Twin Australian sisters Margaret and Christine Wertheim started this project to raise awareness of world's disappearing reefs.






With Australia's Great Barrier Reef for inspiration, the sisters only needed a method to translate the unique forms into yarn. There's actually a lot of mathematics behind these reefs.







Their technique? The hyperbolic crochet discovered by mathematician Dr. Daina Taimina.


With this method they have made several different themed reefs including: the Blue Reef, the Red Reef, the Bleached Reef. Then of course, my favorite, the Toxic Reef which is crochet from trash.

Read more about the reef and how to create your own anemones here.

All pictures courtesy of The Institute for Figuring.

This Dolphin is Tickled Pink - Fresh Catch Friday

Friday, March 6, 2009


Meet today's Fresh Catch, the only pink bottlenose dolphin in the world! This adorable dolphin was discovered in a Louisiana lake by charter boat captain Erick Rue.

He said, "I just happened to see a little pod of dolphins, and I noticed one that was a little lighter. It was absolutely stunningly pink. I had never seen anything like it. It's the same color throughout the whole body and it looks like it just came out of a paint booth."

Credit: Caters News

The beautiful pink color is actually due to albinism, as indicated by its pink eyes. As always with wild dolphins, visitors are urged to observe from a distance and be respectful to this amazing creature.



You can read more about the dolphin at the Telegraph and Caters News.