The Aquarium is the best scuba diving in the state! December 2022
Early this year I started volunteering to be a scuba diver at the Oklahoma Aquarium. Everyday they have volunteer divers go into the Polynesian Reef and Sea turtle island to clean the tanks and feed the fish. This happens around 3:30 and lasts for an hour. I’m sure there are people diving in the Shark Tank as well but us volunteer’s aren't allowed in there. I'm not sure if it's a liability thing, having extra certification to dive with chainmail or some sort of combination of both but I'm just fine with the small teeth fish instead. If you plan on going to the Aquarium I would recommend going around the cleaning time, especially if you have small kids. We will often turn and wave at them or play rock paper scissors, the kids love it. There are a couple hundred volunteer divers there, some go weekly, some once a year, I try to go once a month but that's not always possible.
One thing we are told is to try not to touch the fish while we dive. This is impossible, PETA complains a lot for things that they know nothing about, so it's easier for some aquariums to just tell them “we don't touch the fish” then to try and explain to them that we try not to touch the fish but some of them are very territorial and will snip at anyone near them, also some are really dumb and will just swim straight into you without you ever seeing them. It is even more impossible to avoid them when you are feeding the fish. I love swimming at the bottom of the tank with a little ketchup bottle squeezing out little fish food to the small fish under the reefs. However when doing this all of the fish really want that food so they are swarming the person with the bottle, you can’t see anything but fish, it's amazing, but fish do get touched when i’m trying to swim from one reef section to the other to make sure all the little guys get something to at, It's impossible to avoid it.
Going back to the territorial fish, there are some that will snip at your ankles if you are in their space. These little guys just sit in their spot all day trying to get one of the girl fish to come visit them. They do not like it when we come and visit instead, I mean, I get it. I would probably be upset too but i don't think i would peck at someone's ankles until they leave. The most annoying fish are the ones that eat hair. I don’t know which ones it is because it's always the back of my head they get, and by the time a turn around they are gone. One gave me an ingrown hair (i won’t attach that picture) a few months ago so now i make sure i have short hair before diving so my luscious locks aren't tempting them anymore.