A nondescript warehouse in west Atlanta — nothing on the outside indicates what's inside — serves as the aquarium behind the world's biggest aquarium a few miles away near Centennial Olympic Park. The so-called quarantine facility covers 25,000 square feet and has 80 tanks containing more than 250,000 gallons of water, more than some public aquariums.

"The majority of animals that end up on display in the aquarium stop through here first," said Paul Clarkson, manager of animal quarantine for the Georgia Aquarium. "The Georgia Aquarium is a massive facility, so we need a very large holding facility to go along with that."

Clarkson, who is a marine biologist, and a staff of up to 10 people spend their days here amid the humming of filter pumps, caring for the creatures that eventually will wow visitors at the 500,000-square-foot aquarium downtown.

Ray Davis, vice president of zoological operations for the aquarium, said the quarantine facility has laboratory and veterinary facilities on par with the cutting-edge facilities at the aquarium.

Fish arriving here from the wild, from other aquariums and from fish farms, are quarantined up to 40 days before they are transferred across town to swim in the 8 million gallons of water inside the ship-shaped Georgia Aquarium. Fish are quarantined to make sure they are free of disease and parasites before being introduced to their tankmates downtown.

On a recent cold, wet December day workers were buzzing around several 5-foot-tall blue barrels that had just arrived from Australia. Even the trained scientists let out a few "oohs" when wooden lids — complete with life-support systems needed for the two-day journey — were popped off.

"They are a fabulous looking fish," Clarkson exclaimed as he gazed inside at a 3-foot-long Napoleon wrasse, a pointy-nosed fish from the Great Barrier Reef that can grow to 7 feet long and weigh up to 400 pounds.

The giant fish, sometimes called the Maori wrasse because the delicate patterns on its face resemble the tattoos of New Zealand's Maori warriors , will be swimming in the 6-million gallon Ocean Voyager tank by February, sharing space with two whale sharks, a bowmouth guitarfish and thousands of other fish.

"Most of these wrasses begin their lives as females," Clarkson said. "As they mature, some of them will go through a sex change. They will change from animals with female sex organs to animals with male reproductive organs. They'll change color. They'll change size, and they'll get a crest on their head."

Scientists constantly monitor the water inside the shipping containers with hand-held devices that measure temperature, pH level and oxygen content. The wrasses are treated for parasites and eventually eased into their 2,500-gallon quarantine tanks, where they will be kept until they are transferred to the aquarium.

"In order to operate a large aquarium and continue to stock it, you have to have an area like this," Clarkson said. However, some of the aquarium's biggest inhabitants did not come through the warehouse. Because of their size, the whale sharks and beluga whales went straight to the big tank downtown.

The fish warehouse also has an area where biologists grow coral and jellyfish for the aquarium. Coral arrives as small fragments and is placed in tanks under intense lights that simulate the tropical sun. "A lot of them came in as an inch-and-a-half fragments that have turned into a foot-and-a-half colonies," Clarkson said.

In another area of the warehouse, a swirling universe of lagoon jellyfish swims in a large tank. Nearby is a series of smaller tanks that contain young jellies being grown to maturity. Growing jellies is time-consuming, tedious work.

The smallest jellies — called ephyra — are about the size of a pencil point and swim by the thousands in a tank about the size of a small home aquarium. Next to them in another tank are older versions of the same jellies, these about the size of quarters.

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