Constanța Aquarium

The "Professor Ion Borcea" Aquarium stands at 1 Elisabeta Boulevard, on the Casino seafront, in the Constanța peninsula, facing the Casino. Since 1973 it has formed part of the Constanța Natural Sciences Museum Complex, alongside the Planetarium, the Astronomical Observatory, the Sea Museum, and the Dolphinarium. The building's history is separate from that of the aquarium. It was raised in the early 20th century as the Casino's restaurant pavilion, at the request of Baron Edgar de Marcay, the Casino's lessee, through the architect Daniel Renard, who had designed the Casino itself. The municipality approved the project in February 1912. Badly damaged in the First World War and later rebuilt, the restaurant pavilion operated throughout the interwar years. After 1950 the building was reconfigured by the architect A. Bernovschi, with tanks and technical space arranged around a central basin. The aquarium opened on 1 May 1958, with 46 tanks. Successive investments brought it to its present configuration: a central basin and 56 secondary tanks. It is the only museum institution in Romania whose exhibits consist entirely of living organisms and, despite the later founding of similar sections elsewhere, it has remained the largest of its kind in the country. The collection holds over 100 species and roughly 1,300 specimens, arranged in sections. The marine section, the largest and most representative, houses species from the Black Sea and Mediterranean migrants. The largest tank holds the sturgeon collection, renowned both for its scientific importance and for the longevity of its specimens in captivity, which reaches 18 to 20 years. Lesser-known species are also displayed here: stingrays and thornback rays, weeverfish and greater weevers, starfish, seahorses, pipefish and snake pipefish. The freshwater section presents fish and invertebrates from the coastal lakes and the Danube Delta, from cyprinids such as carp, crucian carp, rudd, and bream to predators such as catfish, zander, perch, and pike. The exotic fish section brings together more than 50 species from Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Australia, while a reef tank displays clownfish and surgeonfish. The building was last renovated in 2007. In February 2023 the Aquarium was closed to the public after a section of ceiling collapsed. In September 2025, Constanța County Council tendered design services for consolidation and rehabilitation, a procedure that was challenged and left unfinished. In March 2026, Constanța City Council approved taking over the building from the County Council, intending to turn it into a museum and cultural space conceived as a unit with the Casino. In parallel, the County Council plans to build a new aquarium in the grounds of the Natural Sciences Museum Complex, near the Dolphinarium. At the time this description was updated, the Aquarium was listed as temporarily closed in the official schedule of the Natural Sciences Museum Complex. For current information on opening hours, ticket prices, and any reopening, please consult the official website: https://www.delfinariu.ro The Constanța Aquarium remains a landmark for understanding Black Sea fauna and for the history of Romanian museology. When it reopens, it will be worth visiting for its sturgeon collection, unique for the longevity of its specimens, and for the rare chance to see, alive and in one place, the Pontic ecosystem, that of the Danube Delta, and tropical fauna.