A 15-million reform for the Aquàrium, or how sharks sleep

The blacktip shark can never stop swimming; if it did, water would stop passing through its gills, oxygen would not reach its blood, and it would die. "And how does a blacktip shark sleep? By swimming. Just as people have automated breathing, it has automated swimming, with sonar to avoid obstacles, even when it sleeps," explains curator Patrici Bultó in front of specimens dancing from side to side in one of the Aquàrium's tanks.

Like the blacktip sharks, the Aquàrium does not stop, and takes a new impulse. Coinciding with its 30th anniversary, the marine center has been transformed with an investment of 15 million euros by the Aspro group, to which the Aquàrium belongs. With this renovation, it has been equipped with new technologies and new educational spaces, and has redoubled its commitment to sustainability, even with furniture made from fishing nets recovered by the Valencian company Gravity Wave.

The novelties become apparent as soon as you cross the entrance turnstiles; what was once an anodyne staircase has become a path over sea waves and large marine animals in motion, digitally projected onto the floor. In fact, it is the largest floor screen in Europe, with a surface area of 300 square meters as an entrance walkway to the center, directed by Maria José Peretó.

It is a prelude to the great novelty that the center is premiering: a large immersive room that plunges visitors into a submarine journey to the bottom of the sea. True to scientific reality, the submarine journey traverses various depths, with moments of calm and delight in marine life, and thrilling and dangerous moments among giant squid tentacles.

But the renovation goes beyond technology, which also sneaks in along the route to inform about the various species found in the enclosure. The investment has also included the improvement of all facilities, the incorporation of new species, the creation of a new mangrove area and the updating and expansion of aquariums, which currently house more than 11,000 organisms of 600 different species, from the dreamlike sea dragons to the deadly stonefish; 20 seconds are enough to kill a person if touched, explains Bultó: "In general, in the sea, the most striking, better not to touch it."

And rays, moray eels, sturgeons, lionfish, piranhas, an endless number of species, and a small piece of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, which continues to whiten due to the worsening water quality and climate change. But you don't have to go all the way to the antipodes to see the effects of rising temperatures. With the warmer waters of the Mediterranean, species that until now stayed in the Red Sea cross through the Suez Canal to our sea, where some tiger sharks seem to have already been seen.

These are changes in the sea that endanger its balance and, therefore, the balance on the planet, caused by human activity and pollution. The Aquarium brings the problem closer to the little ones with tests and activities, ranging from feeding koi carp to an interactive game to remove trash from the sea.

"Our lives are at stake; the Earth will still be there, even if it's with other species," Bultó warned. And precisely this is the objective of the Aquarium, according to him: to promote the care of the sea by showing the wonders it harbors: "Whoever falls in love with the sea, falls in love forever, and whoever is in love with something, takes care of it." Thus, he focuses on those who will be the adults of the future: "We are still in time to save the seas; we are still in time to save ourselves."