Aquatic Development Group (ADG), a leading water park and recreational design, construction, and manufacturing firm, also specialises in providing wave and water motion technologies for zoos and aquariums, helping to enhance animal habitats at these venues. In recent years, the firm has worked on projects at Shedd Aquarium and Georgia Aquarium, as well as working on the sea lion exhibit at Columbus Zoo and Aquarium and the penguin habitat at Ripley’s Aquarium of Myrtle Beach.
It is important for zoos and aquariums to accurately simulate the right waves and water motion for their seafaring and shore-dwelling residents. This is where AGD steps in, taking its successful wave generation technology that is in use at water parks around the world and applying it to sea life exhibits.
Rising to the challenge
“It’s interesting. It is an industry developed out of aquariums and zoos wanting to do more with exhibit design and for realism for the animals, and we jumped right into the challenge,” says Lewis (Lew) Wemple, business development manager for the ADG Waves product line. “Coming from an engineering and creative background, this was really intriguing to me.”
According to Wemple, much of the knowledge of how waves and water motion affect water quality has been gathered from working on wave pools within water park wave pools. Here, as in zoos and aquariums, water is removed from the pool bottom and through surface skimming.
“But beyond that, waves and water movement stir up the water and allow water that might otherwise be stagnant to reach the water intakes,” he adds. “It’s probably most essential when we’re looking to move water over live coral. Living coral needs water movement for life support and will die if you don’t move the water to bring them food and get rid of waste.”
Attendees at the upcoming AZA Annual Conference in Baltimore, from 29 August to 1 September, can find out more by visiting the ADG team at booth #406.
Earlier this year, ADG revealed more details about a recent project for Aquatopia Water Park at Prairiewood Leisure Centre in Prariewood, a suburb of Sydney in Australia. Here, the company was brought in because of its expertise with wave system innovations, creating a wave pool with three distinct wave types.
