Germany: Tierpark Hagenbeck Finishes New “Sumatra Stream Course“

During a redesign period of about six months the aquascape team (Aquascaping: technique of designing aquarium landscapes) of  Hamburg’s Tierpark Hagenbeck has recently finished works on the new “Sumatra Stream Course“ in the old basin of “Amazonas River“. With it’s lenght of ten metres, a height of two meters, a depth of two to four metres and a capacity of 28,000 litres – the stream course is the biggest sweetwater river basin in Germany, according to the park.

To create an Indonesian river the aquarium designers used a combination of solid rocks, gravel, roots and waterplants (1,000 plants from 15 botanical types). In addition, the resdesigned basin features special stream technology. “Aquascaping is not about fish stocking, it’s rather about recreating a habitat as accurately as possible,“ explains Dr. Guido Westhoff, Head of the tropic aquarium at Tierpark Hagenbeck. The new biotope is now home to 14 different species of fish and prawns. (eap)