Official website of the Aquarium-Museum
University of Liège

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• Description and layout
• Biodiversity of the Aquatic World
• Temperate seas
• Tropical seas
• Temperate fresh waters
• Tropical freshwaters
• Sharks and coral reefs
• Dormant waters
• Aquaterrarium

Description

and layout

In the Aquarium’s rooms, 46 tanks hold close to 2500 fish from oceans, seas, lakes and rivers across the globe: the legendary piranhas, moray eels, coral reef damselfish, clownfish with their sea anemones, fish capable of breathing air, tilapias, pikes, eels, perch and other local Belgian fish… without forgetting the fascinating black tip reef sharks or our dogfish and their young.

The 46 aquariums, whose total viewable volume represents 160.000 litres of seawater and fresh water, are distributed in three rooms. A colour code acts as a lead throughout the visit.

• The « Biodiversity of the Aquatic World » room is subdivided into four sections:
  • European temperate seas
  • Tropical seas
  • Tropical freshwater from Africa, America and Asia
  • Freshwater of our regions
• The « Still waters » room
• The « Sharks and Coral Reefs » room

2500 “residents” representing approximately 250 animal species are thus displayed: fish, invertebrates, reptiles… originating from the four corners of the globe. Each species presented is identified by a card (exemples: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4) that list its French name, its scientific name, its family, the type of water preferred, its geographical origin, its diet, its lifestyle, its maximum size and some peculiar characteristic or feature.

A few special aquariums :

• Four didactic tanks host four species of fish presenting a remarkable originality :
  • the fearsome Australian Stonefish whose venom is deadly for humans: its poison sacs are situated at the base of its fin rays;
  • the electric fish (Mormyrus), in a tank where an interactive system measures, records and visualises  the electrical discharges emitted by the fish (oscilloscope, frequency meter, light effects);
  • the Boxfish whose scales have been transformed into bony patches knitted together in such a way as to form a shell which covers the animal’s entire body;
  • the Blind Tetra (Astyanax) who live in a reconstituted cavernous environment.
• Two octagonal aquariums with a four cubic meter capacity each. Both are equipped with the technical infrastructure enabling them to potentially take in fish from any type of aquatic environment: tropical moray eels, cods from the North Atlantic, Cichlids from African lakes and even salmon and juveniles which had previously disappeared from our rivers.

Aquarium Layout