How Did Public Aquariums Develop

Large public aquariums have become fixtures in most major urban regions. In some places, they have become among the leading attractions for city tourism, where many aquariums have also expanded into conservation efforts and applied research along with being tourist destinations. The history of such aquariums is not completely modern, although the form in which we know aquariums today is mostly a recent development.

Early History

Artificial fish ponds were likely the first type of aquarium in antiquity. In ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, fish were likely placed in artificial ponds, as most cities were located along rivers and fish likely served as sources of food but possibly also amusement. It is possible that sacred fish were kept in temples not so much as pets but rather as symbols of fish gods. For instance, the god Dagon, mentioned in the Bible, was often depicted as a fish god.The Egyptian goddess Hatmehit, similarly, may have had fish represented with her. In Egyptian reliefs, fish have been displayed as being placed in artificial environments, including ponds or lakes created in gardens or specific places.

Perhaps China is the best known early culture for developing what became fish pets. China, for over 2000 years, has known to have bred carp for their color and beautify, what we call today as goldfish. The koi, a type of carp perhaps originally from Iran and Central Asia, was likely imported to China and over centuries. The Jing dynasty (265-420 CE) was the first to record the process of raising goldfish for their color. While initially the carp may have been raised for food, it was noticed that sometimes fish produced colors such as orange or red. This led to these fish being bred for their colors in royal settings and estates of the wealthy. The raising of goldfish soon became a source of pride for royal Chinese figures and officials, where goldfish varieties were even raised indoors, enabling some types that would normally die easily in an outdoor environment to thrive and adapt better to the indoors.

The Romans may have been the first to put glass in their indoor aquariums. Sea fish were popular for food in ancient Rome, where archaeological remains suggest that the Romans may have even constructed their ships to transport live fish through tanks contained within the vessels that would suction in sea water. This taste for live fish may have prompted development of aquarium tanks. At first, Romans seemed to have used marble to keep sea fish in. Later, as glass technologies improved and became more durable, the Romans, by the 1st century CE, began to use glass in tanks. This allowed those wanting to eat fish to view what they were getting more easily. Romans did likely keep fish as pets as well; however, their focus for fish was mostly for food.

Development of the Public Aquarium

Fish ponds became more public spaces in Medieval Europe, as cities and towns developed these as places to store fish for food and raise them as a type of fish farm. In the 17th century, goldfish were introduced to Europe, which, for the first time, brought a type of fish that exclusively was bred for its looks rather than taste. With the development of palatial gardens, goldfish, similar to China and Japan, began to be raised as ornamental animals.

While interest in ornamental fish increased in Europe with greater access to wealth and contacts with China, the main development that made public aquariums took time to develop. The major development was the innovation of the Wardian case, which was a type of glass container used to house plants. This development by Jeanne Villepreux-Power in 1832 was made for the study of plants, but it was soon realized that live fish could be contained within these glass enclosures. Soon after, others began to experiment with tropical fish, where they were placed in tanks to see how they would respond. It was evident to scientists that plants that lived in water provided oxygen that fish could use, allowing tropical fish in particular to be kept indefinitely so long as the number of plants was sufficient for the number of fish.

Mostly, until about the 1850s, fish keeping in aquarium was the privy of scientists or those wealthy enough to have such interests. Things changed after the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. The first large public aquariums were now built in places such as the London Zoo (in 1853) that were mostly metal-framed structures created by Phillip Gosse, who used the term aquarium for the first time. The "Fish House" was created as the first public aquarium in the London Zoo, where it pioneered the use of a series of fish tank containers along the walls and other exhibits in the main floor of a dedicated building to fish. Now it became fashionable to collect exotic and strange species as public curiosity increased.