SAN ANTONIO – Three weeks after it opened on Dec. 10, the San Antonio Aquarium still has a line out the door.
"The animals were great. I do think they had a great selection," said visitor Samantha Chacon.
While the much-anticipated venue is still packing visitors in, there is some online buzz that suggests there is already room for improvement.
There is a significant number of parents who are worried about the safety of both the kids and the animals at the aquarium's touch-and-feel tanks.
"I'd like to see more people, just attendants, around saying, 'This is how you touch the fish,' and for education, 'This is what this kind of fish is,' that kind of thing," Chacon said.
During our visit, we observed kids pulling the tail of an iguana and reaching into the stingray tank.
"You could easily reach your hand in all of these tanks. And I just felt like it was really unsafe as well, because it was just so easy for somebody to just fall into a lot of these tanks," Chacon said.
Aquarium owner Vince Covino said between the parents and the employees, the kids here are safe.
Referencing the multiple aquariums Covino owns around the country and the many years he's been in business, he assured us no one has ever been hurt.
"In a lot of the aquariums I've been to, you have to wash your hands before you put them in the tank and after you take them out of the tank. And that just prevents, before you go to the next tank, contaminating and that kind of thing," Chacon said.
Covino said the filtration system is excellent, and there is no need to be concerned about the animals.
As for the multiple posts about dirty, cloudy tanks, Covino said it is a process, and once the bacteria cycle has a chance to work, the water will be clean and clear.