The Life Aquarist

Hi! I'm Dani Jensen. I have a degree in Marine Biology/Psychology from CSUN. Currently working as a founding aquarist at The Aquarium at the Boardwalk. I'm from SoCal. I have worked/interned/volunteered at the following facilities- Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific, Santa Monica Pier Aquarium, Los Angeles Zoo, Cameron Park Zoo, Marine Mammal Center, Aquarium of the Bay, Oceans of Fun, Brookfield Zoo, Discovery World, Aquarium at the Boardwalk. Use my Ask box for: Anything at all. I don't bite, but I am hilarious. Lets be friends. Facebook.com/thelifeaquarist

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LISTEN TO THE CRONCH

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My eels simply say “no” and shake their heads when I feed them food they don’t like.

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A little kiss on the head.

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Anyone out there want to be an aquarist with me in Branson, MO? WE’RE HIRING.

The Aquarium at the Boardwalk in Branson, MO is hiring for an Aquarist. This aquarium is as gorgeous as they come. As an aquarist on this team you will be able to be hands on with every animal in our collection as we are very collaborative. We are a medium sized team (12 total once we hire you!) who work hard and also like each other enough to hang out after work. It’s a great time to join this team as we have settled into our newer aquarium and will now start focusing on projects and accreditations.

Branson is a funky tourist town but it’s ideal for candidates who love outdoor activities. We have a gorgeous lake, hiking, fishing, and cave exploring. I’m a senior aquarist on this team and have been working here since before we opened in 2020. Positions on this team don’t come around often, include a weekend day off, and some of the best work life balance I’ve ever had, so let me know if you have any questions and I will do my best to answer.

https://www.aza.org/jobs?job=37847

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Hi! Cownose rays are my favorite animals, I was wondering if you had any fun facts to share about them?

Cownose rays are THE BEST. Big ol water puppies. A fun fact- they have little flaps that come down in front of their mouth to help the root around in the sand to find prey.

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Archie is VERY impatient.

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can you describe the back of house differences in AZA accredited facilities/more "prestigious aquariums you've worked for versus ones that may be thought of as less focused on husbandry (i.e. Discovery Kingdom)?

There’s not too much of a difference honestly. I’m not going to say specific locations where I’ve seen good/bad things, but I’ll give you some generalities. I’ve seen AZA facilities that are really messy behind the scenes. I’ve seen non-accredited facilities that are spotless. And I’ve seen everything in between. AZA requires that you have a lab for water quality and necropsies that is different from your food prep kitchen. I’ve seen some non-AZA do all of this in the same room. AZA requires a vet to routinely be on site at least twice a month. A lot of non-AZA places will only call vets “as needed”. So you see a lot less sick animals treated and less real quarantine procedures in the absence of a routine vet. Record keeping is usually a hot mess at non-AZA because no one is holding that accountable. Something that is an issue at every aquarium I’ve ever worked at or been to is storage. We just have a lot of stuff that we need and there’s never enough good places to store things. So anytime I’ve been behind the scenes anywhere you will see weird aquarist ways of storing things on shelves, hanging from the ceiling, hap hazardly piling things, etc. But there’s no AZA standard for organizing haha. I would encourage you to look up the AZA standards and give them a read. It will give you a pretty good idea of what standards places are held to, and I bet you can easily pick out which ones are too hard or inconvenient to do if the facility isn’t accredited.

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Juvenile angelfish sometimes look vastly different from their adult counterparts. Pictured is an emperor angelfish. The juvenile (top) has many stripes that break up the body outline to help them blend in on the reef. The adult colors are vibrant and bright.

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She’s gonna have a crick in her neck after sleeping like that.

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My blog is 9 years old today. ✊🏻

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My daily touch pool maintenance. I love all the babies in this exhibit.