Located in Atlantic City’s Historic Gardner's Basin, the Atlantic City Aquarium offers a fun and educational look into more than 100 varieties of fish and marine animals. The Atlantic City Aquarium's eight tanks total 29,800 gallons of live exhibits. Highlights include the Fish of the New Jersey Coast Aquarium, which holds 23,000 gallons and teems with sea bass, lookdowns, sand tiger sharks, northern stingray, bluefish, weakfish, and kingfish. The 750-gallon Touch Tank allows visitors to handle green, horseshoes, hermit and spider crabs, sea urchins, seastars, common periwinkle, channel and knobbed whelk, horse and blue mussels, and common shore shrimp. Each exhibit features computer-enhanced information stations for self-tours, in addition to a 16-station Ocean Life Education Center for personal, in-depth exploration by visitors.

The Center is also accessible to the public via boat. It has become a center for community gatherings and the perfect venue for parties and meetings.

Location
New Hampshire Ave. & the Bay, Atlantic City, NJ, at the confluence of Absecon Inlet and Clam Creek

Building Size
Fourteen thousand five hundred (14,500) square-foot, three-story cedar-clad building featuring Widow's Walk, observation deck and first floor porch.

Components
The Main floor atrium displays 29,800 gallons of live exhibits. The second floor features interactive exhibits, 16 computer stations and a 577-square-foot classroom/ meeting room with state-of-the-art communications technology. The second and third floor indoor/outdoor observation decks round out the facility.

Building Cost
$3.9 million

Opening Date
May 1, 1999

Funded by
CRDA, City of Atlantic City, Atlantic City Historical Waterfront Foundation

Operated by
Atlantic City Historical Waterfront Foundation

Designed by
Blumberg & Associates

General Contractor
TN Ward Company

Aquarium Contractor
Baumgardner Construction

Mission Statement
Since we are all dependent on the ocean where life began, our commitment is to educate, inform and create a bond for children of all ages with the oceans that surround our planet.

"I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it is because in addition to the fact that the sea changes and the light changes and ships change, it is because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have, in our veins, the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch it, we are going back from where we came."

John F. Kennedy, September 14, 1962