Ep 46 - A Career Built Around Water: Dane Tullock on Aquariums, Aquaculture, and Life Support Systems

[00:00:04] Greetings all, Joe Arlotto here with Dr. Jeff Kefaber. Welcome to Inflow, the podcast where we discuss all things related to aquatic animal life support. This show is sponsored by TJP Engineering and Longhorn Organics. You can learn more about our sponsors by clicking on the sponsors page at inflowlsspodcast.com.

[00:00:28] So our sponsors today represent two very distinct phases of an LSS project's life. There's design, of course, TJP Engineering, past inflow guests, Terry Johnson and Joel Johnson. Then there's the construction phase, Longhorn Organics, also previous guests, Holly and Bo Dempsey.

[00:00:53] So they interact with the owner at various stages of the project. But who is the owner? I mean, there's LSS operators, there's facilities people, there's curators. Dr. Jeff, you're an owner. You're an owner. What does that mean to you and who is in that group of owners? Okay, so the ownership group or the stakeholders, as we call them, that represent the nuts and bolts of a project are people like me.

[00:01:22] But also, you've got life support operators, aquarists, husbandry folks, and sometimes even trainer professionals, all involved in various phases of the project. In preparing for this podcast today, Joe, I thought about aquarium design that include, it can be multi-species, whether it's invertebrates, telios, elasmobranchs, and mammals present.

[00:01:51] It could be all of the husbandry aspects associated with fish-based aquariums, like holding systems and quarantine. These are all special niches, even establishing and cycling a biological filter and getting the nitrogen cycle established. These are all valuable things that aquarists participate in as owners during the design.

[00:02:17] I think of Abu Dhabi all the time, you know, so we had aquarium curators support the design of those systems right down to crushed coral substrates, thematic elements, and other components of the habitats themselves. Yeah, I think about the interaction between aquarists and life support operators.

[00:02:41] You know, it's funny, you know, aquarists kind of need to learn how to be an LSS operator, but I'm not sure LSS operators necessarily need to learn how to be aquarists, you know, which is interesting. I guess it depends on the size of the size of the facility, smaller facilities, everyone does everything. So our guest today is that aquarist who's learned life support along the way out of interest, I'm sure, but certainly out of necessity.

[00:03:10] So Dane Tulloch, Senior Director of Life Sciences at the Museum of Discovery and Science in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Welcome to Inflow. Thank you very much. I've been looking forward to this, having been listening to all your podcasts and trying to catch up and being familiar with numerous of your guests. It's a pleasure and an honor to be here today. Thank you. See, that's interesting you bring that up because I was going to bring that up. Now, Dane's a big supporter.

[00:03:39] I didn't know Dane before this podcast. I mean, we've even worked on projects on the same projects. And, you know, you know, he messaged me and he said, hey, love the podcast. I know a lot of people on the podcast. I've worked with Joe Tormansky. I've worked with Sean Bourgeois. I've worked with Steve File.

[00:04:00] And see, this is the cool thing about the podcast is that I like the fact that we're bringing folks together and we're sort of intertwining all the different aspects of LSS. So, Dane, let's start off. Where are you from and how did you get into the life support aquarium world? Okay, well, I'm going to try to keep this as succinct as possible.

[00:04:25] But as the Grateful Dead have said, it's been a long, strange trip with some side trips along the way. I was born in Florida, born in Tampa, Florida, way back in 1967. So, I consider myself a native Floridian, spent every summer and every Christmas in the state. Unfortunately, my family, my dad's side of the family was from St. Louis Misery, as I called it. And they drug me off to the Midwest at about four or five years old, something like that.

[00:04:52] So, I spent most of my formative years in the Midwest, but once again, returning to Florida every Christmas and half of every summer to spend time with my grandparents in the center part of the state, Polk County, Florida. I graduated high school on a Saturday and I moved back to Florida the following Monday. That's how much I missed my home state. I went to Jacksonville University for undergrad and I've always wanted to be a marine biologist, had sand in between my toes, as my mother used to say.

[00:05:21] Was always in the tide pools, in the sand, snorkeling on the beach, picking up shells, picking up sand fleas, all that stuff. Dane, in your formative years, whether that was in Missouri or back in Florida, I think about the geographies, the differences.

[00:05:38] And in Florida, obviously, it's very easy to want to study habitats and ecosystems and all of the animals that are present and plants that are present in those types of environments. Did you find that transition to just loving marine biology easy? I've always loved marine biology. And once again, I did not love the Midwest.

[00:06:02] With that said, I got my first official dive certification at Bulls Shoals Lake in Arkansas, which is, I believe, the deepest lake in Arkansas. So that's actually where I got my deep water diver as, and this is back in the early days of Patty, where you could do a deep water diver separate from advanced open water. So I got my open water there, my deep water diver, and then I had to travel to the coast to do my official open water checkout dives.

[00:06:31] Once again, I spent every summer of my life, half of every summer of my life here in Florida. My uncle, shout out to Uncle Hootie Cook, that's a nickname, not his given name, but that's the name he goes by. He taught me how to fish, along with my father. But he was a big influence on me because he was a Florida-born individual, grew up in the center part of the state, and took me to the Keys. So my first interactions with the Florida Keys were with my Uncle Hootie.

[00:06:57] My first time ever putting a scuba reg in my mouth was before I got certified with my Uncle Hootie. So he's a huge influence on me. But with that said, I hated St. Louis. I just, I couldn't stand it. Every time I could, I would, you know, like I said, fly back to Florida. My grandparents lived in central Florida, so I would spend half a summer every year with them in Polk County. And then every chance I got, if my uncle was going to the Keys or fishing somewhere else, I was begging to go with him.

[00:07:26] So I never really got out of the ocean frame of mind, in my opinion. So what did you study in Jacksonville? I majored in marine science and biology, double major. And my plan was, hey, I'm going to get this degree. At the time, Jacksonville University was the top rated small school for marine biology. Now, I don't know what that means, but, you know, not Florida State, not Bowling Green in Ohio, but a smaller school.

[00:07:51] I was fortunate enough, even though my high school curriculum and dossier wouldn't indicate that I was fortunate enough to get a scholarship, partial scholarship to Jacksonville University, which was one of the reasons why I decided to go there. Also, Dr. Quinton White, it was the director of the marine science program there at Jacksonville University. You can look him up. He's done a lot of great research. He was partners with OCEARCH before he retired.

[00:08:17] So he's done a lot of great work, not only educating marine biologists coming up, but also research and whatnot. So I thought I was going to graduate and go straight into I was going to get a job in the aquarium industry. And that's just where my thought was taking me, Dane, is that after you finish these degrees, the double major, and you have the education behind you,

[00:08:38] how do you now start your career, jumpstart your career, gain experience, and advance through multiple jobs? So unfortunately, as much as I wanted a direct line into the public aquarium world, it didn't quite happen that way. This was 1990. It was right before what I would call the second renaissance of aquariums. Florida Aquarium hadn't opened up. Newport hadn't opened up. Long Beach hadn't opened up yet.

[00:09:06] So it was just before that big expansion in public aquariums happened, I think mid to maybe late 90s. So I actually went to work for an environmental consultant in Jacksonville for three years doing wetland permitting, endangered species relocations, gopher tortoise relocations, turbidity studies, all that type of stuff, working basically in a construction-focused pro-development industry.

[00:09:34] Did that for three years, and I started to feel the heart twins to want to go back to being a marine scientist and actually start my career as a marine scientist. So I figured I have to go to graduate school. So I reached out to various schools, was accepted to FIT, Florida Institute of Technology, not the Fashion Institute of Technology. And this was in Melbourne, Florida. And luckily enough, my major advisor at FIT was Dr. David Vaughn.

[00:10:02] That might be a name familiar to some folks. He worked at Harbor Branch in the bivalve production industry. He went from there to Mote Marine Lab and opened up their first coral lab down in Summerlin Key. And then he is now, he retired, and he is now the CEO president of Plant a Million Corals, a nonprofit focused on coral restoration. And we can get back to my relationship, because I have an ongoing relationship with Dr. Dave. He was one of my first mentors.

[00:10:31] My work at Harbor Branch, Ocean Graphic Institute, where he was during graduate school, was the way I got my foot in the door. Dr. Dave knew people in the industry, and his recommendation to the folks at the Virginia Marine Science Museum, at the time now the Virginia Aquarium, I believe is what really set me apart for some of the other candidates when they did their first major expansion. And what did you study in graduate school? I mean, what was your focus?

[00:11:01] Marine aquaculture. Since I was under Dr. Dave in the aquaculture bivalve department at Harbor Branch Ocean Graphic Institute, and this was before I started to do ornamental reproduction, and they started at Harbor Branch as well, and they actually came on board a couple years after I left. So I was actually the first person to grow clownfish and reproduce clownfish on Harbor Branch property. It wasn't a major focus. That wasn't a side.

[00:11:27] My major work, my major thesis work was on a corallomorph, Ricordia Florida, which is endemic to the Caribbean and South Florida. We don't see it a whole lot anymore. It used to be $5 for a half a dozen polyps. Now they're $50 a polyp. So the frequency of those animals has decreased greatly since my graduate school years.

[00:11:52] And interesting enough, and I can't remember which hurricane it was, but I had raceways all set up for my research. A hurricane came through, wiped out electricity for two weeks, 10 days, two weeks, and everything that I had got superheated and died. Unfortunately, I didn't have much money to repurchase those animals, repurchase equipment and whatnot.

[00:12:14] So at that point, I went to Dr. Dave and I said, look, I either have to take a break from college and go earn money so I can put it back into my research, or I got to go find a job. And that is when I actually got my first position at the Virginia Marine Science Museum, now the Virginia Aquarium. That's where I first met Jean Bourgeois and numerous other gentlemen who were there involved in their first expansion. They had their main building.

[00:12:42] I can't tell you when that was first built, but we were working on an expansion started in 1993 that – I'm sorry, 1995. That was the Owls Creek Marsh Pavilion was my responsibility, which was a salt marsh pavilion separated by a marsh walk. And then there was the ocean pavilion that others like – I know Beth Furshaw was one of the curators on that. If you know that, that's another familiar name in the industry. So, Dane, now you're on your career trajectory, right? So you're in the mid-90s.

[00:13:11] You're in Virginia. You're working on exhibit and habitat design, salt marsh, all of that. So what was your first role at the Virginia Aquarium? Yeah, so I was hired as a senior aquarist, so a level two aquarist. My experience at Harbor Branch was what allowed me to come in at that level.

[00:13:34] And I, in partnership with three or four other gentlemen, including Sean, was responsible for fabrication of all the intertidal exhibits that we had in the Owls Creek Marsh Pavilion. The one exception to that was we had a North American River Otter exhibit there as well. And shout out to Chip Harshaw, who headed up our mammal program there. Funny thing, 30 years later, I run into Chip's name at this facility where I work at now, and we can get into that a little bit later.

[00:14:03] But it goes to show how small this community really is, even over the course of three decades. So we had things like intertidal fish exhibits. We had a snapping fish, snapping turtle exhibit. We built what I think is one of the first fiddler crab exhibits. We had a couple gentlemen from New England Aquarium come down and take a look at that build. Steve Spina, a few other gentlemen came down from New England Aquarium to take a look at what we did with our fiddler crab exhibit. And they actually perfected it.

[00:14:33] We tried to do some water tidal influence and whatnot, and the biggest challenge with that was the mud bank, if you will, was actually made out of fiberglass, and it rubbed some of the fiddler crab carapaces, creating challenges. See, so you're an aquarist there. You're obviously, the way you describe it, you're involved in a lot of things. So tell me a little bit about your introduction. Maybe it came earlier, but was this your introduction to sort of life support?

[00:15:01] And how did you interact with the, you know, the Sean Bourgeois, the life support guys, or even the equipment? Were you turning valves? I was, and we were plumbing. We were doing fabrication of all the plumbing in that pavilion with, once again, with the exception of the Otter Exit, which was probably 20,000, 30,000 gallons. Everything I was working on was sub-1,000 gallons. So they were small boutique systems, as you guys have mentioned previously in previous podcasts.

[00:15:29] But yes, we did all the plumbing. We spec'd out all the lighting. We spec'd out all the pumps and all that stuff. So I was doing fabrication. I did do some wrench turning back at Harbor Branch, so it wasn't my first exposure to pump repair and whatnot. So, Dan, this is very interesting. I want to get a little technical with a water parameter now. Just touch on this. With the intertidal work you were doing, what did you find in the way of salinity swings?

[00:15:59] I know that Sean spoke to that in some detail a couple of weeks back. Yes, we were pulling from the same reservoirs. I think, if my memory is correct, we had a separate reservoir in the House Creek Marsh Pavilion because it was about a quarter mile away from the main facility. But we were pulling from that same intertidal creek, so we could see wide swings, as Sean indicated. It could be 10 parts per thousand if we had a really rainy time at low tide, or it could be 35 ppt if we had an incoming tide with no rain for a while.

[00:16:29] So there was quite a bit of variability. So we had to adjust that salinity using synthetic salt primarily. And so after Virginia, or so how long were you in Virginia? Two years. And then, this seems to be a theme, but I had some relationship challenges with a young lady, which encouraged me to look elsewhere. This is a theme you'll hear a couple times throughout this conversation.

[00:16:55] But I had heard that Ripley's, believe it or not, was opening their first aquarium in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. And the first question I had is, was it going to be like the Simpsons? Are we going to have three-eyed fish? Because Ripley's had a reputation back then. It was before they really showed their mettle in the public aquarium field. And so I was the, I believe I was the second or third individual hired on to the Husby team. Once again, hired on as a senior aquarist under Tim Hansel.

[00:17:25] Tim had come in from the North Carolina aquarium or conglomerate. My two supervisors in Virginia, Mark Swingle and Malin White, were also from North Carolina. So I think, once again, it's who you know. I think their recommendations probably helped me get that first job with Ripley's. So we started, I started before any, well, I started when the building construction, the infrastructure was underway.

[00:17:53] But none of the exhibits had been really fabricated or completed. We built a holding facility about a half a mile from the main facility in Myrtle Beach. The majority of that was already constructed when I came on board. That was all concrete tanks, six, eight foot deep. I would say, and Joe Charmanski would scream, I mean not knowing this. But I'd say maybe two and a half, 2,500 to 5,000 gallons per system.

[00:18:19] And they had utilized Brentwood media in a reverse flow format. I believe we definitely had sand filters. I believe we had ozone primarily on the water creation. And that was synthetic seawater. And I believe the original freshwater was pulled from a well. You asked me to remember 25 years. So once again, if I'm getting a few things incorrect, Joe will correct me, I'm sure. Yeah, well, you know, we've had Joe on the show. We've had Steve File on the show.

[00:18:48] We've had Gal Judah on the show. Who I also worked with. That's right. All Ripley's people at one point or another. But so you're there, you're hired before the actual opening of the aquarium. And so how much was your involvement in the life support? I mean, there were big life support systems there. There were small life support systems. So were you put in charge of the smaller type systems and the life support?

[00:19:15] Most of the stuff, and once again, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Intertech was a consultant on that project. And so they had developed and designed most of the large systems. We were, as the Animal Husbandy team, responsible for putting together more of the, once again, the boutique, the 1,200 gallon or less exhibits. Ripley's has a similar footprint throughout all their aquariums with the exception of Canada, which focuses more on native Canadian fishes.

[00:19:45] But typically you have an Amazonian freshwater section. You have a jewel gallery. We have what they call Shark Lagoon, which is 600,000 to 750,000 gallon, elasmo brain focused, big reef exhibit. You'll have an Indo-Pacific rainbow reef, rainbow rock, whatever the name would be on that. That was 60,000 to 70,000 gallons of Indo-Pacific fish with artificial corals. They would have Ray Bay, which is the other keystone exhibit common to all three aquariums.

[00:20:15] And that was primarily a deep water, say, I don't know, probably 10 meters deep section of a ray exhibit and then shallows where people could touch the rays all in the same exhibit. So all the bigger stuff was done by outside consultants ahead of time. Yeah, Dane, we talk a lot on the show about the life support operators, the larger systems. I was working as a consultant with Intertech and John Waters at the time on that project in Myrtle Beach.

[00:20:45] But can you describe for me, coming from the boutique LSS, small jewel tank side, how was the aquarium or the facility organized in those days with respect to life support operators and aquarists? And how was the communication structure back and forth? Absolutely. So that was my first interaction with Mr. Steve File, fellow. Well, I don't know if he was born in Florida, but I know he came up in Polk County at Winter Haven doing skiing.

[00:21:15] I probably watched him ski and didn't even realize until years later at Cypress Gardens. But his team focused on life support, the big life support, water, water treatment. I don't even know the capacity of our mixing tanks and our holding tanks, but we had mixing for saltwater creation. We used synthetic salt in Myrtle Beach because we were fairly far away. I would say probably three to five miles away from the coast.

[00:21:41] We had backwash reservoirs that were treated and then, you know, you could only discharge so much. Steve's team, awesome team, did all of that. And so the communication between animal husbandry and life support, in my experience, was very good. There is there's always pushback between husbandry and life support when those are separate entities. And I'll take this opportunity to mention one.

[00:22:06] So when you talked to Steve, he said he made a comment about how aquarists were touchy feely. Animal husbandry people are touchy feely. It's how the fish look. It's how they move. It's how they eat. And he made a comment about how he believes in instrumentation and how he relies on the numbers that he sees in front of them. And I like to push back just a little bit on that because there was actually an incidence in Myrtle Beach that proved that sometimes intuition is more important than instrumentation.

[00:22:37] So we had that Rainbow Reef, Rainbow Rock, I forget what that proper name was at the time, Indo-Pacific exhibit, 60,000, 70,000 gallons, artificial reef, 150 to 200 species of Indo-Pacific reef fishes. I think the total probably 8,000 to 10,000 fish total in that exhibit. And so we had brought that online. And it was either right after opening or right before opening.

[00:23:05] One of my habits that I had back in the day was to take my younger aquarists and take them to that exhibit and quiz them on what fishes were in the exhibit. What's the common name of that fish? I'd point one out. Okay, who knows the genes and species? And we would spend five or 10 minutes almost every morning playing that game to kind of help their professional development. And remind me what, you know, because genus and species, sometimes I have to name names change over time.

[00:23:32] So it helped me refresh my memory and my knowledge on those fishes. And one morning we were doing that. And I think maybe somebody was feeding at the time. And I noticed that the feed was slightly off. Not like a fish in a corner, gilling heavily. But there wasn't that. Usually in that exhibit, you get a lot of reaction to food being presented to the exhibit. And it was just lukewarm from the fish's response. So I called Tim and I said, hey, Tim, I think there's something going on in Rainbow Reef.

[00:24:02] Let's take a look at it. Can you come over? Blah, blah, blah. And then Tim looked at it. We checked with Steve. Steve said, hey, all the numbers are great. I don't see an issue. And he might have jabbed us a little bit about us being touchy-feely fish people. And he's like, yeah, you know, don't worry about how the fish feel, in quotation marks. So we went back up on top over, you know, there's a non-public access over the aquarium. And once again, I was with Tim. We're looking at the aquarium. And we may have thrown out a little bit more food.

[00:24:31] And once again, the reaction wasn't that great. We checked DOs. DOs were where we wanted them. And then out of the corner of my eye, I saw this flash. And I'm like, I thought I imagined it. So I said to him or whoever was up there with me, did you see that? And they're like, no. So we stared at this certain area of this quadrant of the top of the aquarium for a little while. And about 45, 60 seconds later, one drop comes from the ceiling. And I'm like, well, what's that? We look up.

[00:24:59] It's coming from the HVAC system. I'm sorry, the fire suppression system. So basically, toluene rust inhibitors were coming slowly from the fire suppression system into the exhibit. 60,000 gallons, a drop every 60 seconds. That's a very small addition. But as many of us know, those types of rust inhibitors can be extremely toxic to fish. So basically, threw carbon on the system immediately.

[00:25:26] And eventually, the solution was to put a tarp awning over the exhibit. The original one was temporary. If you go there now to this day, I believe there's still a more advanced aluminum frame canvas tarp over that exhibit, which basically funneled any of that contaminant into a gutter system and off to where it wouldn't go into the exhibit.

[00:25:50] So that is one of the instances where I say intuition is often as important as instrumentation. Steve, I love you, man. That's for you. You know, this is interesting because on some of these systems, we do have a lot of monitoring. We have a lot of control. We can look at flows. We can look at ORPs. And then, of course, we take our water quality tests, right? And we test for nitrates and we test for nitrites.

[00:26:19] We test for ammonia. We test for phosphates. A pretty big array. But Dr. Jeff, you're not going to see something like that in a normal, even extensive daily array of water quality tests, right? That's right. In our industry, we do have a large array of tests that we run, to be sure. And they're all important tests.

[00:26:43] But our industry does not have, often, unless you're well-heeled and have a lot of financial support or have a local university nearby, you don't have the instrumentation that are required to pick up things like Dane mentioned, toluene or other things I've struggled with over the years, any benzene, aromatic-type compound. These are things fish don't like, and their behavior will change. And you will see that response.

[00:27:13] This is when you send out that water sample to an outside lab and start getting those volatile organic compounds, those VOCs, and get those back and look at those results. Yeah. And so, to me, this is that idea of the balance of power. When life support operators start adjusting the system based on what they think they see

[00:27:39] with the animals, or aquarists want the system adjusted based on what they think the equipment is doing, then we get into chasing our tail a little bit here. So, I totally understand this idea, Dane, of making decisions based on what you see with the animals and how they're reacting. One thing that I'd like to add on the intuition part of it is when you've been doing animal

[00:28:04] husbandry, particularly aquatic animal husbandry for a period of time, in my case 25 plus years, you develop what I call the aquarist sixth sense, where you can walk into a room that you've walked into a thousand times before, and within seconds, you can hear or smell or actually feel different vibrations so you know something is off. And that, several times in my career, has helped me identify an issue which could have

[00:28:33] turned into something much worse that we cut in the bud because we were able to secure it and identify it early on. And that's something I try to teach my younger aquarists is that sixth sense. Yeah, I want to speak to that sixth sense, Dane, a little bit because if you think about vibrations or there could be a pump cavitating somewhere, right? If you think about why the fish are staying away from the inlets, maybe you've got small

[00:29:00] levels of residual oxidants coming into the system. Maybe an ORP sensor is out of calibration. And so now if it's controlling ozone, that dosing is off. And so that's very important. Watch, listen, watch behavior, and put all that together to come up with the diagnosis the best you can. And then work with the life support operators to get the system back in balance.

[00:29:31] Absolutely. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. So you're at Myrtle Beach now, Dane, and you're opening up that aquarium. So where do you go after that? So we opened up the Myrtle Beach, Ripley's first aquarium in Myrtle Beach. I was there for approximately a year after opening, maybe 18 months. And then Ripley started to look into opening their second aquarium. And they announced it was going to be in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

[00:29:57] And I was the first to say, I'm the one that I want to go do that because that was my second construction project. I realized very early in my career that I was learning more than people who weren't having that opportunity to go through new systems, new constructions, work with life support in a startup capacity, work with developers, designers in a startup capacity, and also work with team building.

[00:30:23] And as a senior, I wasn't a director of animal husbandry, but I was senior staff. So I was also working with newer staff, younger staff to help bring them up to speed. I wouldn't have called myself a mentor at that point, but certainly somebody who was helping to train the staff. So I was the first person on the ground for animal husbandry for the Gatlinburg Aquarium, Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

[00:30:50] I arrived one week before the director of husbandry, Frank Bowman. And Frank, myself, Joe Choromansky, and Brian Brawner, who had his own private aquaculture supply company at the time, RMB Aquatics, also came on board to help us build the holding facility, which would serve as temporary holding for the new facility. So the four of us, primarily me, Frank, and Brian, because Joe was going between responsibilities

[00:31:20] in aquariums, but Joe would show up quite frequently. We basically plumbed the entire holding facility with the three of us. Some of the equipment was new. We had pulled in some equipment. I know we had a 40 to 50 foot cylinder holding system that we brought in. I believe it was from one of the SeaWorlds that we had to actually fiberglass 25, 26 different panels together because they had been cut up and pulled out of a holding system in another location.

[00:31:49] So the three of us, along with, once again, Joe coming in frequently, built the holding facility. And then the other staff started to come in after that. And then we started to work on the facility startup in downtown Gatlinburg. So that was my second facility with Ripley's. So I want to get back to Ripley's. And I know I want to get to where you are now because I know you have a very interesting job now. Let's take a quick break here and hear from one of our sponsors.

[00:32:17] Aquatic equipment and design. We've had Amy Stone on Inflow previously. And have you worked with AED previously, Dr. Jeff? Certainly have bought their products over the years. Of course, there's a history to this, right? I mean, Amy Stone, aquatic ecosystems, then it became water life design and Stuart McDaniel and all the partnerships. And then she went out and started this company, aquatic equipment design, AED.

[00:32:45] And I've known her for years. I mean, every also conference, she is always a burst of joy to the conference. What I like most about her niche market, and I know she's doing work at the Shedd Aquarium, you know, in their offsite facility, I believe. But the point is she supplies equipment, but it's much more than that.

[00:33:09] She will get involved in design, late design, early construction, installation, commissioning. I mean, it's kind of a turnkey operation and she can deliver on a project. They're especially good at working with the local mechanical contractor and providing that type of technical specialty. They come to site and they can help guide the mechanical contractor through the LSS installation.

[00:33:38] I worked with AED pretty recently on an interesting project. It was a smaller aquarium, but it had lots of LSS. So a lot of equipment. They wanted me to look at all of their LSS and provide basically a schedule for the replacement of all the equipment over the next 10 years. I went on site, I looked at all the equipment, and then I worked with Amy and AED to basically

[00:34:06] get costs for all of this equipment and talk about what maintenance was needed and how long that this equipment filters, pumps, bio towers, how long it would last. It was an involved project and it really was great to work with her and her staff. Super knowledgeable. Yeah. Life cycle analysis, Joe. That is kind of the end all be all of project delivery.

[00:34:34] And it kind of predicts the future, if you will. And Amy's very good at that. Yeah, definitely. They do a lot. They have a lot. Definitely give her a call. We appreciate Amy. We appreciate AED for sponsoring us. And we appreciate really their dedication to the LSS industry. Okay, we're back with Dane.

[00:34:55] Now, Dane, you are at Ripley's Gatlinburg and you're getting ready to open up that facility, correct? Yes, sir. I know early on there were some challenges with just the infrastructure. The pilings, and once again, Joe Chormansky could speak better to this than me, but the pilings that they drove, they were trying to drive to support the building were not working the way they

[00:35:24] wanted to because of the granite boulders that are all around the Great Smoky Mountains. And so there was a slight delay in the concrete, the base concrete work for the main facility. And they ended up bringing in a company from Germany called Frankie Piling. And basically my understanding was that particular company developed a way that could encase a boulder in a support structure. So they would drive the piling down to the boulder. Then they would clear space around the boulder.

[00:35:54] My guess is with, you know, hydrology water. And they would literally pour concrete around the boulder as the base of that piling to give more support to the facility. So that did delay initial construction for a little bit. So, you know, we had one of those signs that said opening date scratch through, opening second date scratch through, opening third date scratch through. And I believe we opened in late 1999 or early 2000.

[00:36:23] And Dane, opening at 1999 or 2000, as you said, do you stay on the project or the operation then for a while? Or when did you move on to the next facility? I think that was Toronto. Yes. Well, there's a lot between there and then Toronto. But I stayed at Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies for about six and a half, seven years.

[00:36:46] My goal at that time, Ripley's was planning to open numerous facilities on a two to three year basis. And so my idea was, OK, I'm that guy. I've opened the first two facilities. I'm going to go to the third, the fourth, the fifth, how many ever they open and be that startup guy from the animal husbandry side of things. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, finances, project planning, whatever, the two to three to four year plan, all of a sudden I was there six and a half, seven years.

[00:37:14] And still hadn't progressed on to another facility. And they didn't open their third facility until 12, 15 years after that point in time, as luck would have it. But once again, as I mentioned, there was a girl involved who I'm great friends with now, but we weren't doing so well then. And I felt the urge to move on. So I moved back to Virginia Beach to work with my former colleagues who worked at the Virginia Aquarium.

[00:37:39] And he had a private consulting firm that did aquarium installations, private homes, businesses and whatnot. Mike. And so I worked with Mike for Mike Williams for I think it was one and a half to two years doing that. And then I finally met the girl that would eventually become my wife. So I haphazardly chased her up to New York City.

[00:38:02] And I worked with a company consulting firm out of Connecticut, Greenwich, Connecticut, that would come into Manhattan and Long Island. House of Fins under Robert Bray was the owner's name. And we would do high, high end installation and maintenance. I worked in Dakota. I worked in a lot of nice homes in Long Island that I won't name names for, you know, to protect clientele privilege and whatnot. But I did that for about a year.

[00:38:28] My wife had unfortunately been in Manhattan during 9-11. She lived in Hoboken at the time, New Jersey, across the river. But she got stuck downtown for two and a half, three weeks because of what happened in 9-11. So there was around 2003, there were some incidents in England on the tube, the London subway. They had some bombings and they had a big scare in Union Square one day while we were there.

[00:38:54] And my wife, my girlfriend at the time, now my wife, she was like, I can't do this anymore. And we started to look at other locations. And we looked at Boston. She had friends in Boston. I had reached out to Warren Gibbons, Gibbons Aquaria. Warren was a former employee of New England Aquarium. He had a consulting firm that did similar work in Boston. So I reached out to Warren, went up there, interviewed. He was like, you've got a lot of great experience. Come on.

[00:39:22] And one of my biggest jobs that I did for Warren was I went to San Antonio and we opened up the Rainforest Cafe in San Antonio. And I was, Warren did most of the design for that project. But I was heavily involved in, once again, fabrication, LSS, installation, startup and whatnot. And that I was actually in San Antonio, I believe, for six to eight weeks straight. I think I came home for two days over eight weeks to see my wife.

[00:39:49] And so that was a big project and another great, you know, a remote construction, remote project experience. And then I had taken a job with Recreational Equipment Incorporated, REI, part-time, just to get deals on gear, what they call pro deals. I was a big kayaker, big fisherman. Striped bass in New England is a big thing. And eventually a position came open with them doing community outreach.

[00:40:17] And I was starting to get burned out on the aquarium world. You know, I had at that point I was five, six companies in and I was just getting burned out because, you know, we used to say it's a 25-8 type of job. You work 25 hours a day, eight days a week when you're sending them new facilities. I believe that's a Joe Choromansky phrase. So credit to Joe for that. But I just got burned out in the industry. So I figured I'd go do this outreach for a while and ended up doing that for six and a half years.

[00:40:44] Okay, Dane, I want to get back to something you said in more general. You laid out a lot of specifics there. But you, and I mentioned this at the top of the hour, but you brought up a holding facility, how important those are, whether they're remote or adjacent or close by.

[00:41:07] And also at these facilities, you would design the quarantine treatments process as well as these animals come in after collection. They need a space to go through quarantine, correct? Yeah, I just want to give credit where credit's due. The design of the quarantine protocols were done by Joe and either Tim Hansel or Frank Bowman. I instituted those quarantine protocols and I use very similar ones to this day.

[00:41:36] But I will not take credit for developing those. Those belong to other gentlemen. But you implemented them. Absolutely. So, okay, so now you're at REI, right? And you're in Boston. And, you know, I, and somehow you find your way back to the aquarium world, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. The aquarium world is like the mafia. Every time you think you're out in my best Pacino that it just draws you back. That's right. That's right.

[00:42:06] So, unfortunately, I got laid off of REI. They were, they were very kind to me. They offered me a store manager track to become a store manager, but that's not why I joined that company. And I had heard that Ripley's was opening the third aquarium in Toronto. So I reached out to Joe and said, hey, Joe, I'm jobless right now. I got about six weeks before my, my, my severance runs out. Do you need somebody up there? Because I'd love to get back into it. I only knew two things.

[00:42:35] I knew outdoor recreation and I knew aquariums. And so Joe said, sure. A couple of things. So we already have our two senior aquarists and our curators and whatnot hired. So you'd have to come in as a regular level one aquarist and you'd have to relocate to Toronto. And I'm like, let's do it. Why not? Adventure time. So I went up there as a level one aquarist. I was actually the oldest member of the animal husbandry team, Andy Dehart.

[00:43:03] Before that, he had been at the National Aquarium in Baltimore. He was the director of animal husbandry there. I actually, I believe I'm about eight months to a year older than Andy. But as the oldest person there in the husbandry department, I was just entry level. And that was a great opportunity that I didn't know I needed. That gave me a lot of perspective.

[00:43:25] It allowed me to step away from the responsibility of being a senior curator or whatever, but to be able to provide advice, input to the younger staff. The Canadian labor laws required them to have a certain number of Canadian employees. But many of us who had experience, in fact, I think everybody who had real experience in the aquarium field came from the States.

[00:43:51] Andy, our two seniors, myself, and the rest of the team were pretty green aquarists from around Canada. Some straight out of college. I know Gall came in out of the area for the life support side of things. Gall Judah, who I worked with up there. So it was a really great opportunity for me. It was a little bit humbling, to be perfectly honest with you.

[00:44:13] But it was a great opportunity for me to kind of step back, remember what I knew, learn what I hadn't been abreast of. Because you're talking seven years out of the industry. Technology travels fast sometimes. So I had to catch up with technology lighting in particular. And then also, it was a great opportunity to be in another country and learn how people do it elsewhere. Toronto was very expensive. I had lived in Manhattan in Boston.

[00:44:42] Toronto was more expensive to the point that we actually lived, my wife and I, then still my girlfriend, lived outside about 40 minutes, 45 minutes outside of town. Because that's what we could afford. We lived in a farmhouse in a place called Caledon, which is about 45 minutes north of Toronto. And I had to commute in every day. I'm a southern boy. That Toronto winter killed me. Negative 17 degrees Fahrenheit for a whole week during the winter.

[00:45:08] So once I thought out, I said, I'm going broke and I can't stand the cold. So I asked to be transferred back to Myrtle Beach. After a little bit of quizzing and grilling from Joe Chormansky, I was allowed to do that. And so I went back to my position. I went back to Myrtle Beach as a level one aquarist, the same facility I had opened as a senior aquarist. So once again, a little bit of humble sandwich for me to take care, you know, to ingest.

[00:45:32] But it was a great opportunity once again to return to a facility that I had opened to see how it had changed and to learn from those who are now in senior positions. Yeah, that's very interesting. You know, very interesting that you would go back to a place that you had worked, but at a different position, an actual lower position.

[00:45:56] So then, so, but I want to get to your current job because the museum you work at now in Fort Lauderdale is not the, not a lot of life support. So I'd like to hear about how you got there and what your job is now, what exactly you manage and how life support is part of that. Absolutely. I'll try to keep this as succinct as possible.

[00:46:21] So my director of animal husbandry, Andy Dehart was coming down to Florida, to Miami to open up the Frost Science Museum, the Philip and Patricia Frost Science Museum. I had heard about that. I told Andy, I want to get home to Florida. So as soon as you have a position, I'm your man. And he said, absolutely. And so I came on board a year and a half after returning to Myrtle Beach.

[00:46:45] I moved back to Florida and started my position as a senior aquarer, senior biologist. And primarily when I first started, in addition to helping open up the facility, I was in charge of the offsite quarantine facility. It was called the Bachelor Environmental Center, BEC, which probably had about 60,000 gallons of holding and quarantine space. It was an exterior building, so it had no climate control.

[00:47:13] It was basically a Quonset hut type situation, open to the environment, which had a whole bunch of new challenges that I wasn't used to. But I spent my first, I would say, three to four years really focusing on quarantine and acquisitions. Moved on to be curator at one point and then came here to join MODS, the Museum of Discovery and Science in Fort Lauderdale, just under four years ago.

[00:47:36] And that started here as director of life sciences, which is basically this facility's term for animal husbandry and was promoted to senior director of life sciences about 18 months ago. And so what kind of life sport do you have there? Describe, I mean, probably not huge exhibits, but go through the exhibits you have and some of the equipment that you use. Absolutely. So this is a considerably smaller facility.

[00:48:02] I believe I had written down somewhere, but I believe we're approximately 60 to 70,000 square feet, two stories. This facility was built. It started in 1971 in a separate location as the Discovery Center, a very small kind of mom and pop local science center. We moved into our current location in 1992 and then expanded, doubled our size in 2012.

[00:48:26] I was brought on board to help spearhead a number of gallery renovations. And then also we're also working on a satellite facility now with the city of Deerfield Beach, which is scheduled to open in January of next year. So there was a lot of infrastructure challenges when I came on board. This facility, once again, was originally built in 1992.

[00:48:49] So the majority of our live animal exhibits, what we call ecoscapes, is concrete with plumbing, ensconced in concrete. So if something fails, you're not getting to it. And laminated glass aquariums. A lot of leaks, a lot of pump failures, plumbing failures and whatnot. In 2012, the largest exhibit was part of the expansion. That's our North American River Otter exhibit. It's a 30,000 gallon freshwater exhibit.

[00:49:16] And that's the only exhibit that I would say has a true remote LSS support system. We run two, I believe, four horsepower, one, two, three, three, four horsepower centrifugal pumps, Hayward pumps. It runs on two sand filters. We have ozone injection for that system. It did originally have UV sterilization, but that's been removed as a mixture of failure and whatnot. I would love to replumb that system. So that's one of my projects down the line.

[00:49:45] So do you have life support operators or do you just have facility guys or just, I mean, do you actually have LSS operators and aquarists or does everyone do everything? So we do have a facilities team, but they focus more on infrastructure and building and design of our exhibits along with our exhibits team. My team, the animal husband team, does all the life support. Case in point, our saltwater mixing is a remote room.

[00:50:14] We rebuilt that entire room and added an industrial RODI unit there. Historically, this facility has always used to use straight tap city water because of our heavy focus on living coral exhibits. I got rid of that, and now we're running on an industrial RODI unit. We have two 3,000-gallon saltwater storage tanks, two 3,000-gallon saltwater storage tanks, and then a 3,000-gallon saltwater mixing system.

[00:50:44] So we mix 3,000 gallons, taking off the 6,000-gallons capacity we have from the RODI unit. That's transferred to stores, and we can pump that pretty much through the entire building with the exception of the River Otter exhibit. That exhibit still uses city tap water that's de-clorinant. And are you downtown? What's the location like? We are right downtown in Fort Lauderdale on Broward Boulevard, pretty much the primary intersection of Broward and US-1.

[00:51:11] Okay, so we talked a little earlier, well, about management expectations versus what is actually on the ground, what you can do in a certain amount of time. What's your take on that? Well, I would like to say first and foremost that our CEO, Joe Cox, different Joe, here at MODS, Museum of Discovery and Science, is one of the greatest.

[00:51:41] He fights for our department. He fights for our budget. And I feel more supported in this position. Nothing against any of my other supervisors, any of my other CEOs and whatnot. But Joe really supports our staff in the animal hunting department. Because I think of my experience, which we've already gone through, Joe knows. Joe brought me on because he knows I know what I'm doing. And as long as I can justify an expenditure without being frivolous, as long as I can explain why I want to do something,

[00:52:11] I have pretty much full control over my department in the ability to develop new exhibits, live animal exhibits and whatnot, new enclosures. Historically, that hasn't always been the case. I'm not going to throw anybody under the bus by name. So we will withhold names to protect the guilty. But there was one other facility that I worked at in my previous career. There are people out there who know what I'm talking about. And once again, I'll leave it at that.

[00:52:38] Where me and my team worked 60 hours, 70 hours a week for months on end to bring a construction project to fruition. We weren't paid overtime. We were all salaried. And we just, you know, once again, that 25-8 mentality, we just put our nose to the grindstone and we got it. We got the work done. One of my teammates, unbeknownst to the rest of us, recorded everybody's time.

[00:53:04] So when we were all done with that project, that teammate turned that into our hierarchy and basically said, we're not looking for back pay or time off. But this is what it really took to do this project. And this is what you guys planned. If you're going to do this again, you need to plan properly. You need to plan for time. Make sure that you schedule it properly.

[00:53:30] If you're going to ask your staff to work overtime, you need to pay them properly. And you need to have the resources available to get the right equipment. The powers that be took one look at that. And because of local labor laws, they basically slapped us with, it's the only time I've ever been officially reprimanded in my career as an animal husbandry specialist, biologist. And I got a reprimand letter saying that I, quote, worked unauthorized overtime. I have that on my wall today framed.

[00:53:58] I look at it as a badge of honor that early in my career, we worked so hard that we got reprimanded by the powers that be. So the whole point of that is you need to plan ahead. You need to anticipate not only financial expenditures and costs and infrastructure needs of a project, but you need to plan ahead and properly anticipate how many man hours is it going to take? What's the time frame to build out this project?

[00:54:24] And so that's something that we look really closely at here at my current position. I think we do a great job. I mean, that's fair. I think that's very fair because, you know, no one's trying to expose anybody else. But the fact of the matter is, is people doing the job, people on the ground, they know what it takes. And they should be able to tell the people who aren't on the ground exactly what it takes. Right, Jeff? I mean, you're an owner, right?

[00:54:54] You deal with both sides of this, I'm sure. Yeah, I mean, I think about startup and commissioning of systems, that middle ground, right? We're trying to deliver on a system, on a habitat, on a boutique type system. And opening day is next week, right? And so we're under the crunch of the project. And there's always the punch list stuff. And then it just seems like, okay, when's this going to end?

[00:55:23] But we've all been through it. I mean, if you haven't been through it before, you should try it once because it's a roller coaster ride sometimes, getting these facilities up and running. I wanted to ask, Dane, just one more question. And you alluded to it. Can you, at MODS, what your role is there? Can you, what's the balance between renovations, infrastructure updates versus new exhibit design?

[00:55:54] Yeah, thank you for asking that, Dr. Jeff. So when I first came on board, the first year to 18 months was basically triage of what we needed to fix here. Case in point, all of our animal records were paper-based, spread across how many ever file cabinets we had. We, I integrated all of our animal data into TRAX, which is an animal database. It's widely used in AZA facilities.

[00:56:21] Took us about six months to get all that integrated digitally. Now, everything we have animal-related, whether it's vet reports, water changes, water chemistry, observations, operant training for animals, it's all in TRAX. And I can find any record in 30 seconds, which is unbelievably useful. Once we got past that first slog of, okay, you know, let's fix leaks. Let's look at exhibits that don't make sense here and redirect our focus.

[00:56:50] We had a lot of non-native animals on exhibit. And our exhibitry runs the gamut of freshwater, saltwater, invertebrates, fishes, reptiles, amphibians, and then on into our keystone exhibit with our North American river otter, so aquatic mammal. And so there's a wide breadth of different animals we work with, different types of exhibits and whatnot.

[00:57:15] So I worked really hard to refocus our attention on indigenous species. So now we have green tree frogs. We have eastern glass lizards. We have rough green tree snakes. Three species that when I was growing up in Florida, I'd find in my backyard almost weekly, if not daily. They don't exist here anymore. I have seen two glass lizards since I moved back here 10 years ago.

[00:57:44] I haven't seen a single green tree snake in the wild, and I never run across green tree frogs anymore. So what I wanted to do was focus our collection on what used to be prevalent here, because one of our main focuses here at MODS is conservation and environmental sustainability.

[00:58:02] And one of our new projects is what we're calling Build a Better World, which is a whole gallery focused on environmental sustainability and resilience in giving our guests and our members, and particularly our younger guests and members, an opportunity to see how they can make a difference. Because there's a lot of climate fatigue. A lot of people, especially younger people, are just tired of hearing about how the oceans are getting warmer. Our coral reefs are dying.

[00:58:31] Invasive species are taking over South Florida. And so our focus in Build a Better World is to highlight those challenges, but then to give solutions, not just talk about what's going wrong, but what we can do to make things better. So two of our new live animal exhibits are coral reef exhibits, comparing Atlantic and Pacific coral reefs, and we're focusing on coral restoration.

[00:58:53] We've expanded our Burmese python exhibit, and we located them into the new gallery to talk about our partnerships with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and other facilities that help to control invasive species. We're also going to have a lion fish exhibit to help focus on that subject as well. The gallery also focuses on extreme weather, how to live and thrive environmentally sustainably in an urban environment.

[00:59:21] And then we're also talking about the historical side of Florida ecosystems, both from a prehistoric side and also from an Everglades side. Unreal. I mean, so much information in a short amount of time. So we kind of have to wrap this up. And I want to ask the question, the last question we ask all of our guests.

[00:59:43] And for you, Dane, it's going to be particularly interesting and poignant, I think, because of the very many places you've worked and even in sort of different industries and adjacent industries. So what is your advice to a young person that wants to get into the aquarium world, life support or aquarist? Or, you know, what's your nugget of knowledge for them?

[01:00:10] And I'll try not to be too long-winded here, but it's three-tiered. The first is never burn your bridges. I've gone out of this industry and come back in. I was allowed to come back in. And I was able to come back in because of my reputation when I left the industry. I never burn my bridges. I always try to be respectful. You know, I came back in lower than I went out in terms of my hierarchy, my job description. Having a little humility will go a long way in your career.

[01:00:40] The second is taking the opportunity to move about, particularly when you're young. There's very few people in this industry who start at one facility and spend 25, 30 years and end at that facility. Move around. I encourage all my younger staff, if they do right by me, I am going to give them the best review I can. I'm going to go out there and, you know, campaign for them to get new positions in other facilities. Because I think it's imperative that you learn how different facilities do things differently.

[01:01:09] You get your hands on different size exhibits, different animals, you know, different collection compositions and whatnot. You know, maybe you do water chemistry. Maybe you do LSS. Maybe you're strictly animal husbandry. But get as much experience as you possibly can. And then the third thing is put your nose to the grindstone. I came from a world where you bloodied your elbows, your fingers, and your toes to 25, 8, 25 hours a day, 8 days a week.

[01:01:35] And I think some of that work ethic can be challenging currently. I understand we all want to get compensated for the work we do. And I think everybody should be duly compensated for the work you do. But animals don't take time off. I'm on 24-hour call because I'm the leader of my team. Luckily, I live 10 minutes from work. But if something goes wrong at 2 a.m., I'm out of bed. I'm here at 2.10 to figure out what's going on. And that's necessary because animals don't follow human schedules.

[01:02:05] So you have to be willing and able to put in the time, put in the effort, and be humble and learn as much as you can. I like it. I like it. Don't burn bridges. Move around. Work hard. And really, kind of, Dane, that's kind of your story. You know? Dr. Jeff, last word. Last word is to just talk about those three tiers. Very important.

[01:02:33] But if you look at your career ladder over the arc of your career, always be creative and curious. Right? And every role you have through this long, wonderful career. That's all I got. All right. Well, thanks, Dane. Really, really great to meet you, really. And really great to hear your stories. Thank you so much for the opportunity. It's an honor to talk to you, gentlemen.

[01:02:59] It's an honor to be even considered for this podcast because you've had some really big shoes and luminaries of the industry. So I'm humbled to even be allowed to speak to you in this format. Thank you so much. Well, thank you. Thanks, Dane. Yeah, thank you. And I look forward to keeping in touch. So thank you to Dane Tolak. Thanks to Longhorn Organics and TJP for sponsoring the show. Thank you to all for listening to Inflow. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review.

[01:03:27] And don't forget, you can always stay connected with us at inflowlsspodcast.com.