Touring the Waikiki Aquarium – Part 1

In our humble opinions, the Waikiki Aquarium is the best public aquarium in North America, if not the world. Sure, the small Hawaiian exhibit may not have the super massive tanks that house whale sharks like at the Georgia Aquarium, but they makeup for their lack in quantity with an insane amount of quality. Gracing the tanks at the Waikiki Aquarium are some of the healthiest and most densely populated reef aquariums that you will ever come across in a public exhibit, along with the largest Tridacna gigas clams you’ll ever see in captivity, stunning sunlit display reefs, and a growing list of extremely rare fish that includes the peppermint angelfish (Paracentropyge boylei), masked angelfish (Genicanthus personatus), and Abei’s angelfish (Centropyge abei)…all of which can only be found at Waikiki. It’s enough to blow you away. Thankfully, this facility is one that I can proudly say that I have visited, and the trip should be a bucket list item for each and every marine aquarium keeper. We’ll kick off our coverage of a very recent visit to the aquarium with this picture intensive focus on the Northwest Hawaii exhibit, in which we’ll take a look at the masked angelfish, as well as a few of the other tanks.