Moody Gardens' $37M overhaul of Aquarium Pyramid underway Public to see four-story oil rig, pirate ship in May 2017

Artist's rendering of the future jellyfish exhibit at Moody Gardens. Artist's rendering of the future jellyfish exhibit at Moody Gardens. Photo: Moody Gardens Photo: Moody Gardens Image 1 of / 30 Caption Close Moody Gardens' $37M overhaul of Aquarium Pyramid underway 1 / 30 Back to Gallery

GALVESTON – Oil rigs at times have been vilified for damaging the environment, but the hundreds of drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico also have become islands of marine wildlife in a vast underwater desert.

The importance of oil and gas structures to sea creatures is the focus of a $37 million makeover of the Moody Gardens Aquarium Pyramid. Workers are erecting a four-story replica of a submerged drilling rig inside the pyramid to showcase the variety of marine life that have colonized the steel structures.

Rigs have become so important to marine wildlife that the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has a program called "Rigs to Reefs" for converting abandoned rigs into permanent reefs.

The aquarium is closed for work to take place on the oil rig, an 80-foot pirate ship, a new penguin exhibit and other projects, said Greg Whittaker, Moody Gardens' animal husbandry manager.

A four-story steel beam was installed in the pyramid's center, and two, 15-foot-diameter acrylic tubes that will form the walls of a tank containing the rig were lowered over the beam last week.

Completing such an ambitious project inside an aquarium while keeping the marine life healthy is a challenge. A construction misstep could endanger lives.

"Our animal control team is on a higher sense of alert," Whittaker said.

The aquarium upgrade began in August 2015, and the public should be able to view the changes May 27, 2017. The pyramid has remained closed for most of the construction, opening only during the holiday season for the Festival of Lights.

The Aquarium Pyramid is scheduled to reopen Nov. 12 and shut down again Jan. 18 for the remaining phase of construction, Whittaker said.

"We're going to give guests a bit of a peak when we open the Festival of Lights from November through January," Whittaker said. "They will be able to appreciate a new exhibit path, but we're trying to keep the veil pulled over the exhibits as much as possible so we can get that impressive 'wow' factor."

The pyramid is getting a new lighting and sound system and a complete replacement of the interpretive exhibits. The new sound system will allow for a different set of sounds, music or narrative for each exhibit, replacing the single strain of background music that formerly wafted throughout the pyramid, Whittaker said.

A replica of a 60- to 80-foot pirate ship will be placed at the bottom of the shark tank, complete with a 30- to 45-foot mast and a debris field similar to what would have been created by a wreck on the Gulf floor.

Staff in scuba gear inside the tank will be able to field questions from visitors relayed through a new communications system to a docent outside.

A new exhibit will feature Humbolt penguins, which forage in the Pacific Ocean's icy Humbolt current but breed in the deserts along the coasts of Chile and Peru. The Humbolt penguin is increasingly threatened as climate change destroys its natural habitat and by overfishing of its prey.

Also new are eight tanks showcasing 11 species of jellyfish and a replica of a mangrove shoreline with exhibits allowing visitors to touch small sharks and debarbed stingrays.

The biggest change is the oil rig replica.

Abandoned rigs have become islands of marine life in a Gulf that is in many ways a vast underwater desert.

"The Gulf by and large is a big mud puddle," Whittaker said. "Life typically requires some sort of a structure as base for colonization."

Visitors will be able to view the undersea life on the rig through 24-foot high acrylic windows that wrap around the exhibit.

The two-story underwater section will be topped by a two-story replica of the rig above the surface of the Gulf.

The oil rig exhibit and the pirate wreck "send a message that we, as humans, do have a place in nature whether by design, as in the oil rigs, or by accident with the other artificial reefs we've provided through centuries of navigation" leaving shipwrecks, Whittaker said.