Kelp Forest - Monterey Bay Aquarium, California, USA

At 28 feet deep, the Kelp Forest exhibit at Monterey Bay Aquarium is one of the tallest aquarium tanks in the world, and the camera sits inside it at diver level. Sardines, anchovies, leopard sharks, wolf eels, and rockfish weave through swaying golden fronds, with the kelp growing around four inches a day thanks to 2,000 gallons of water pumped directly from the bay every minute.

A surge machine replicates the constant water movement that kelp needs to survive, and scuba divers go in weekly to untangle and trim the fast-growing algae. Feeding takes place daily at 12:30pm Pacific time, when the activity in the tank picks up considerably. The feed runs from 7am to 7pm Pacific each day.

Keep an eye on the rockfish. They have a gas-filled swim bladder that lets them hover completely motionless among the kelp fronds, sometimes upside down, without sinking or floating.

Did You Know? Giant kelp is the fastest growing organism on earth, capable of growing up to 60 centimetres in a single day under ideal conditions. In the wild, Monterey Bay's kelp forests reach 30 metres in height and support over 800 species of marine plants and animals, functioning as the ocean equivalent of a tropical rainforest.

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