Blog: Building a wreckage - behind the scenes of The Deep's newest habitat

How do you bring life to a wreckage? Director of Husbandry & Exhibition at The Deep aquarium, Ben Jones, explains this enormous endeavour...

I’ve been lucky enough to experience the outline of a ship’s hull appear gradually from gloomy deep water, with shoals of fish and colonising corals coming into view as I swam closer. It’s an oddity of SCUBA diving, that human made structures become unusually interesting once underwater. A boat on the surface is just boat. A wrecked boat on the bottom is a challenge, it has secrets, a story, it transforms into part of the seabed that provides a home for so many species. It’s something that’s completely out of place, maybe that’s what makes it so interesting?

From an exhibition design perspective, something that contrasts against the surroundings can work very well, and this was certainly part of the motivation to create The Wreck, not just as a dramatic centre piece, but as a teaching tool, allowing us to engage visitors with artificial reefs, where human made structures are increasingly being used to support biodiversity in areas where natural habitats have been lost or are limited.

Every exhibit that we create must have a purpose that is rooted in education and/or that supports conservation. Recent additions include 2021’s Changing Seas exhibit focusing on ocean acidification through to 2023’s Cool Seas and jellyfish renovations with local seagrass restoration focal points, we view the exhibition as a conversation starter, and something that our formal and informal education teams can use as a tool to engage visitors with the marine world.

Creating a wreck from scratch was as much an engineering challenge as an artistic one. Basing our design on a real wreck we felt added credibility. As with our other habitats, aiming for hyper realism was the goal and the USS Kittiwake, sunk off Grand Cayman in 2011 had the features and available reference material to help us realise our ambition. Every piece, down to the last nut and bolt was crafted from GRP, PVC and nylon ensuring the whole build was completely fish safe. To make life more interesting our build site is up on the second floor, accessible only via a small lift; in which the materials had to be brought in and pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle before being painted and coated in resin.

Prior to lowering each piece of the Wreck into place, also reassuringly difficult given the exhibit is seven meters ‘Deep’, the team completely and painstakingly renovated the black epoxy paintwork inside the exhibit. It was important from the beginning that the wreck appeared to be in open water with the walls of the exhibit disappearing. The lighting is very precisely controlled and shuttered to create the right look. The visitor view is intended to be as if they are standing on the bow, so the lighting needed to be complimentary of that in the attraction, while providing the fish with the intensity that they needed.

In addition to the physical habitat, water chemistry for large marine exhibits is crucial for high animal welfare. A full renovation of the life support system, capable of constantly filtering the 150K litres, ensured that our latest habitat was in top shape. Keeping water inside the exhibit is also a fairly high priority, so replacing the important silicone seal around the 200mm thick acrylic viewing window was completed. Incidentally, did you know that it’s only the water pressure that holds our windows in place? When we drain an exhibit, we must use supporting brackets to keep the tonnes and tonnes of acrylic in place. As you can imagine this then takes up space where the habitat is being built so it can be awkward. When we fill the exhibit back up with water, we must keep a close eye on the water temperature, otherwise we run the risk of expansion or contraction of the acrylic. Lots to consider, and it would be rude not to acknowledge the many amazing contractors that we work with on almost every aspect of builds like this.

Our primary chosen species for this habitat is the Lookdown (Selene vomer), its dorsally flattened body and silver colouration compliment the artistic lighting levels well, which are programmed to mimic natural day length and light intensity at the chosen depth.  All of our Lookdowns were tank reared, and the Husbandry team have cared for them while they’ve grown from tiny fish in our behind-the-scenes facility. Future onsite breeding would certainly be something we consider after deploying the egg collector.

The educational messaging is delivered by digital interpretive displays, a new hybrid interactive combining tactile dials with a digital interface, allowing visitors to create different sunken combinations to see examples of real-world artificial reef structures. Combined with our Summer event; Wrecks & Reefs, the new habitat provides a great back drop for our education goals.

We’re really pleased with how this exhibit has turned out, it represents a departure from our usual naturalistic recreations to something purposefully human. It represents nature’s resilience, and its ability to reclaim and restore when given the chance and a little helping hand. We want visitors to gain a deeper understanding of how human innovation can work with nature, rather than against it, and in so doing, help support marine conservation. This we hope, helps inspire visitors to contribute, whether through making sustainable seafood choices, reducing plastic waste or getting involved with a local coastal project. Everyone has a part to play.

 - Ben Jones, Director of Husbandry & Exhibition, The Deep

All blogs reflect the views of their author and are not necessarily a reflection of BIAZA's position