Clinical Center Biotopes Bring People Closer to Exotic Water Worlds

Episode # 69
Uploaded: September 14, 2011
Running Time: 02:14

CROWN: From the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, this is CLINICAL CENTER RADIO.

Deep within the aquariums at the NIH Clinical Center is another world. A neon-colored goby stands guard for a crab.  A male and female shrimp engage in a lover’s quarrel over food.  A large female orange clownfish dominates center stage with an array of anemone as her backdrop.  A person could get lost in there and, according to aquarist Joe Farmer, many do.

FARMER: They’re a good diversion for the waiting areas. I think it’s something that can occupy their attention and provoke their curiosity.

CROWN: CC’s aquariums have become a part of the living, breathing environment of the 240-bed research hospital. Patients and staff are drawn to the five biotopes throughout center, each designed as its own natural water habitat. Farmer, who owns his own company called Aquaterra Environments, has been caring for the water life here since 2007. His most recent project is to work with CC’s art committee to create signage outside each aquarium to better educate observers.

FARMER: The more they know about them – where they live, where they’re from – the more attached they become to them and the more affection they have for them.

CROWN: All of the aquariums are managed by CC’s Animal Care Program. Farmer said the team is very committed to ensuring the water life is healthy.

FARMER: If it’s something as complex as finding a better source of purified water or as simple as making sure the lights around the aquariums go off at night, so that the fish have a chance to experience a normal photo period and sleep at night.

CROWN: Caring of the fish also means setting rules, such as no tapping on the glass. As for naming them, that is allowed as long as we realize there’s a lot more alive in the aquarium than just the fish. It’s a world that includes hardworking coral and small spiny sea urchin with complex, exotic animals…

FARMER: I’m trying to encourage an attachment to the environment.

CROWN: From America's Clinical Research Hospital, this has been CLINICAL CENTER RADIO. In Bethesda, Maryland, I'm Ellen Crown, at the National Institutes of Health, an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

Back to Clinical Center Radio