Kelly Tarlton’s History:

1983       
Kelly Tarlton made his first inspection of the tanks after investigating other sites for an  underwater aquarium.

1984
Construction on Kelly Tarlton’s Underwater World began – Due to the expense of importing the prefabricated tunnel sections; Kelly imported huge flat sheets of acrylic himself. These sheets were formed into the correct dimensions and then placed in an oven where heat moulded the plastic to the correct curve. These 7cm thick sheets are the same acrylic sheets that make up the tunnel today, and are a world-first design that is now copied by aquariums around the world.

1985
The aquarium opened to the public.

1985
Kelly greeted the 100, 000th visitor to the attraction before tragically dying only 7 weeks after the initial opening of the aquarium.

1986
The Underwater World had received 1 million visitors

1995
The Antarctic Encounter opened with live King and Gentoo Penguins, a replica of Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s 1910 Hut, and a Snow cat ride.

2000
The NIWA Discovery Room opened with a touch tank and interactive displays.

2004
A State of the Art life support system (filtration) for the Aquarium was installed. This replaced the original sand filters.

At the same time construction began on a 350,000 (approx) litre, open top tank called Stingray Bay this was to provide more of a close encounter for the members of the public and to make it easier for people to move through the attraction.

2005
Stingray Bay officially opened in January 2005 with special touchscreens to provide instant information.

Along with Stingray Bay a new Discovery Room was opened and a window was cut into the seawall to provide a connection with both Auckland City and the Waitemata Harbour. One of the special things about this is that the window used 2 pieces of acrylic left over from Kelly’s original construction.