Aquaria KLCC, Kuala Lumpur

Aquaria KLCC, Kuala Lumpur is located in the Kuala Lumpur Convention Center, which, like I wrote in this post, is just a stone’s throw away from the PETRONAS Twin Towers and Suria KLCC. If you are from Suria KLCC (say you parked your car there or you came by LRT), there’s a tunnel at LG (Lower Ground) that you can walk through to go from Suria KLCC to the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. It’ll take about 5-10 minutes walk, depending on your pace. A fair exercise if you ask me.

I went to Aquaria a fortnight ago with my mom for a mother-daughter dating session. Although it’s the school holiday now but since we went there on a weekday, the crowd were not so big. I specifically decided to go on a Wednesday because of the special feeding sessions (on top of the daily feeding sessions) that are only available on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. The doors are opened at 11am but we had our breakfast first so we went in at 12pm instead. Yeah, I missed the Electric Eel feeding session. But I wasn’t going to miss the other feeding sessions.

*Watch video in HD for a better quality viewing*

Aquaria KLCC Level 1 Map

Piranhas

At Level 1, we were first greeted by the Piranhas at the entrance. Yes, there are Piranhas here. I usually thought Piranhas were small but they’re not actually. There were some interesting facts about Piranhas beside the tank and here are some of them :

We’re Piranhas!

• In Venezuela rivers they are called Caribes.
• Piranha teeth are useful for making tools and weapons.
• Piranha will attack any creature, whatever the size, if it is injured or struggling in the water.
• The reputation of attacking humans are almost certainly exaggerated.
• Not all piranhas eat flesh.
• Piranhas have poor vision but they react to the colour red.
• They are pretty shy and hide most of the time.
• They have a keen sense of smell equivalent to that of sharks and salmon. They can smell blood as far away as 1-2miles from the source.
• They are extremely fast swimmers and would arrive at a feeding frenzy at no time.
• Piranhas known for the most reputation for aggressive behaviour are the red-bellied piranhas, Pygocentrus nattereri.

After the Piranha Tank, there’s the Touch Pool where you can hold the starfish or baby shark. I only touched the starfish but mom was squeaky with delight when she get to touch the rough skin of the baby shark. There are the Electric Eel, Electric Catfish and Elephantnose Fish in their respective aquariums too. We then walked to “The Stream” to see the cute Giant Water Rats and the Asian Small-Clawed Otters. I managed to record the Water Rats feeding time. They are so cute! Check out the video of the feeding sessions at the end of this post.

Electric Eel

Asian Small-Clawed Otter loves my camera!

We then continued our journey to the “Jewels Of The Jungle” section. I am not a reptile fan. The hair at the back of my neck stand straight up when I saw the lizards. Geckos are NOT my thing. I’m still alright with snakes though. Mom is brave when the reptiles are in their glass confinements but she’s not a huge fan of them either. There are unusual looking reptiles like the MataMata and the Alligator Snapping Turtle. There’s also the Yellow-banded Dart Frog, which was so tiny, but don’t kid around with this little guy coz he is deadly.

MataMata can be found in South America and is carnivorous. It is a predator that ambush its prey where the fish is rapidly sucked into its mouth and swallowed as a whole.

Alligator Snapping Turtle can be found in America near rivers, lakes or swamps. This turtle is carnivorous and is the world’s most dangerous turtle. it uses its worm-like tongue to lure fishes into its mouth. And guess what? This ancient creature has been around for 20 million years!

Simply touching this yellow-banded dart frog can disrupt nervous impulses, which can eventually lead to heart failure.

The Milk Snake (white-black-red) is often mistaken as the venomous Coral Snake (red-black-yellow) because of its colour. Though I suppose no one has the time to recall the colour if they accidentally confront a snake somewhere.

We then make our way to Level 2 where there are more fishes!

There was the “Amazon Flooded Forest” with the Arapaima, Red Tail Catfish, Silver Arowana and many more. I managed to get the feeding session too, so check out the end of this blog post for video. As we walked through Level 2, we went through “The Coast” and “Oceanarium”. The Oceanarium is where the sharks and other fishes swim freely in. There are Zebra Shark, Sand Tiger Shark, Brown Banded Bamboo Shark, Giant Moray Eel, Honey Comb Moray Eel, Peppered Moray Eel and lots of other fishes and corals.

Look at my shiny teeth! Guess who am I?

It’s a Zebra Shark! You can also find Zebra Sharks at Pulau Layang-Layang, Sabah.

Then, it was the shark feeding time! The ultimate show of the day! It was pretty awesome, especially seeing the Santa diver and the fishes circling him. There was the Giant Blotched Fantail Ray, turtles and so many other friendly-looking fishes. Suddenly I wish I was in there too. So guess what? I registered for the Cage Rage, at only RM180. Hope to join the Cage Rage soon. Finally, we made our way through the “Weird and Wonderful”, the “Coral Discovery” and saw some jellyfish before leaving the premises. This was an educating, mom-daughter bonding, happy time for me. If you would like to experience the same thing, go to Aquaria’s website for details or just head down to KL Convention Centre today.

Anyways, check out the Feeding Frenzy video of the Giant Water Rats, the fishes in the “Amazon Flooded Forest” and at “Aquatheatre” below :

*Watch video in HD for a better quality viewing*

On a side note : My mom and I had a lot of fun at Aquaria though we do hope there are some things that the people at Aquaria can take into consideration :

1. If it’s possible, maybe Aquaria can add more benches for the visitors especially for the elderly who might need to sit once in a while after feeling tired walking around. Some of the benches in Aquaria are either torn or uncomfortable to seat on. It was fine for my mom and me when we went there because the crowd was moderate and so we can find the next seat to rest but if there were bigger crowd, how then?
2. Another thing I noticed was that the “no flash allowed” policy was not strictly enforced on visitors. What can I say, some people are either complete idiots or choose to be ignorant of the fact that fishes have no eyelids and can be blinded by exposure to camera flash. For this reason only, I hope Aquaria will be more strict on those who do not adhere to the rules so that we can protect the health and the rights of our water friends.

P/S : I will be posting more photos of my Aquaria KLCC, Kuala Lumpur visit at my Facebook Fanpage.