Heartbeat of the Mississippi Aquarium up and running

After more than a month since the originally scheduled opening date, the Mississippi Aquarium remains under construction. As they continue to move forward, officials haven’t missed a beat.

In fact, the highly anticipated Gulf Coast attraction is coming to life with the recent installment of Life Support Systems or what the staff like to call ‘the heartbeat of the aquarium.’

This is a process where water is properly conditioned with salt for each species before they enter their new habitats.  Color-coated filters help staff identify each habitat as they all have their own unique living requirements.

Mississippi Aquarium CEO Kurt Allen says this was a major step toward getting the aquarium ready for opening day. “This is a very critical step, so over the last 4 or 5 weeks, the entire focus has been getting this system up, running, and getting water into our exhibits. Now that we have that done, we can start conditioning the water, cause it takes weeks for the water to get conditioned to a point where we can actually load the fish into the water. But this is actually the start of when we can begin to determine the opening date for the aquarium.”

Allen says residents and visitors can expect a late summer or early fall 2020 opening, but an official date will be announced soon.