1964 - William Kelley, a former director of The Cleveland Aquarium, founds Aquarium Systems, Inc., with the early objective of supplying products to research institutions. The company’s first product, Instant Ocean®, becomes widely accepted by the scientific community and remains the standard for scientific research today.
1966 - The Aquarium of Niagara Falls commissions Aquarium Systems to build and operate the first major public aquarium to exclusively use synthetic seawater for its marine animal exhibits.
1973 - The Mystic Marinelife Aquarium in Mystic, Connecticut, opens, as does SeaWorld, Orlando. Both parks use Instant Ocean to prepare their saltwater exhibits.
1974 - Aquarium Systems opens the first commercial-scale fish hatchery using synthetic sea salt. The facility enables the company to further refine Instant Ocean formulations based on observations and data gathered from studies with marine organisms.
1983 - The company builds a state-of-the-art research and production facility in Europe. After continued refinements to the manufacturing process, Instant Ocean surpasses other sea salt brands in delivering reliability and consistency.
2003 - In 1930, 20 railroad tank cars made eight round trips between Key West and Chicago to deliver one million gallons of seawater for the Shedd Aquarium’s marine exhibits. When the world-famous aquarium unveils its 750,000-gallon Wild Reef venue in 2003, it takes a different approach to create its saltwater environments. Thousands of pounds of Instant Ocean are used to fill the Shedd’s aquatic exhibits and meet the needs of more than one million marine animals.
2005 - Marineland, the parent company of Aquarium Systems, becomes part of Spectrum Brands. That same year, the Georgia Aquarium — the world’s largest aquarium — opens in Atlanta. Almost two million pounds of Instant Ocean is used in the aquarium’s 6.2 million gallons of seawater.
2006 - Pet retailers across the U.S. vote Instant Ocean LifeguardTM the winner of the Pet Business Industry Recognition Award in the fish/maintenance category. Lifeguard features HaloShield®, a revolutionary non-antibiotic agent effective against a range of infectious diseases that can occur in both fresh and saltwater environments.