MSUM Oceanarium

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MSUM Oceanarium The MSUM Marine Lab brings a unique experience to the MSUM community where students can do hands on research and learn all about marine life!

The MSUM Oceanarium is an interactive, investigative marine laboratory open to the Moorhead community, college students, and researchers. 🪼🦀🐠🪸
Located in Langseth Hall.

Are you ready for some scary cool fish?We are too! We’re hosting our annual OceanScary-um on Saturday October 31st from ...
10/16/2026

Are you ready for some scary cool fish?

We are too! We’re hosting our annual OceanScary-um on Saturday October 31st from 4-8pm. What can you expect?

🦈 Lights dimmed and the oceanarium transformed into haunted house, but don’t worry about scares, fish aren’t too good at that!
🐠 Free face painting by MSUM students!
🐟 Games with prizes! Test your knowledge on some spooky looking fish, help the urchin out on his costume, and try your luck at pick-a-duck!
🌊 Waiting your turn for other activities? Well, we’ve got you covered there too with coloring and crafts tables!
🍬 And of course… CANDY!

We can’t wait to see you there!

10/02/2026

Sometimes we let our organisms play with their food!

Enrichment is an important element we provide to our organisms that come in many different forms:

- Interactive habitat items like rocks for hermit crabs to climb.
- Objects for them to interact with through play and manipulation like pool rings for stingrays to move around with their snouts.
- Feeding tools that allow the organism to utilize more natural eating techniques as seen in this video with our sharks.

Enrichment provides mental and physical stimulation that keeps their natural processes intact as well as prevents boredom and stress. And we’re always on the lookout for new ways to keep their minds sharp! 🧠

Would you like to see more videos of our enrichment methods?

🐉 Are you a current MSUM Student? 🐉 🌊 Do you like the ocean? 🌊 Well, have we got good news for you! Our first O.C.E.A.N....
09/14/2026

🐉 Are you a current MSUM Student? 🐉

🌊 Do you like the ocean? 🌊

Well, have we got good news for you! Our first O.C.E.A.N. meeting will be taking place on September 17th at 4pm in the Oceanarium. This is going to be a preliminary meeting to inform students on our goals and mission as well as highlight a few events we’ve done in the past.

We can’t wait to see you and start working on our outreach events!

Please note that this meeting is only open to current MSUM Students.

09/07/2026

Our Giant Red Hermit Crab, Benny, did a little house hunting this summer and has a shiny new shell to show off. We managed to get a video of him testing one out for size and it does a great job to show off his abdomen, which is why he needs a shell to begin with. Even though hermit crabs have the typical hard exoskeleton, it only covers the upper portion of their body leaving their abdomen soft and unprotected.

Hermit crabs are not born with their shells. Instead they have to find them. As they molt and grow they have to move into larger shells. Unfortunately, some hermit crabs are not as lucky as ours and don’t have a lot of shells to find the perfect fit with. This is due to a shell shortage that causes these critters to use trash to protect their soft abdomens.

Next time you’re at the beach please remember that to you it may just be a cool shell but to a hermit crab, that’s a mansion!

Thank you all for playing our Zoom Quiz in our stories! Did you get them all right? Which answer surprised you the most?...
08/26/2026

Thank you all for playing our Zoom Quiz in our stories!

Did you get them all right? Which answer surprised you the most?

We hope you learned a little something you never knew about the featured organisms. We cannot wait to do more interactive stories like this in the future!

🌊Announcement!🌊To give our student staff time to settle back into the academic waters, we will not be hosting Open Hours...
08/15/2026

🌊Announcement!🌊

To give our student staff time to settle back into the academic waters, we will not be hosting Open Hours or Private Tours starting August 21st. Keep an eye out for updated scheduling.

We greatly appreciate your continued support and cannot wait to open our door to you again!

08/09/2026

Do you like walks along the sandy ocean bottoms?

While not our most active organism, sometimes our sea anemones do get up and go for a stroll. They use their tentacles (movement shown in this video) or their base (pedal disc) to walk themselves to where they need to go. Some even twist and turn to propel themselves throw the water in a swimming motion! However, this process can be quite slow, this video had to be sped up 4.0x! 🌊

07/31/2026

We’re sure everyone’s heard by now but in case you haven’t, we have sharks! 🦈 To end off Shark and Ray Awareness Month we want to give you a little more information about our new friends. Swipe to learn about where they live, what they look like, how they find food, and what kinds of threats they face in the wild.

And remember to stop by sometime to say hi to our Brownbanded Bamboo Sharks!🦈

The MSUM Oceanarium will be closed August 1st to give our summer Aquarists a break! They’ve all done such a fin-tastic j...
07/28/2026

The MSUM Oceanarium will be closed August 1st to give our summer Aquarists a break! They’ve all done such a fin-tastic job this summer and we shore appreciate them!

Don’t worry, we’ll be back next weekend (August 8th) for our regular Open Hours! 🐡

Address

Langseth Hall, Lower Level, Room 5 600 11th Street S
Moorhead, MN
56560

Telephone

(218) 477-2572

Website

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