Paul Calvert questions Liz Kaufman who is staff veterinarian at the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo, about their conservation work and education programmes.

The water that we use to water all of our plants is called grey water. It's recycled, it's not to the point where it's good for human consumption, but it's great for plants. So all of the plants in the zoo are watered by our own grey water.

You will also notice the aquarium itself has a green roof, which reduces heat absorption and that helps to keep the building cooler.

The ponds in the entrance to the aquarium, there is no filter system, it's all natural filtration through the beds of swamp plants. All the water goes through and over the swamp plants, which cleans the water. So that is all recycled water that is cleaned naturally as opposed to inside the building where we need to use filter systems.

Paul: The zoo has been here for many years but you have just opened the aquarium, when did the aquarium open?

Liz: The Aquarium got its first group of fish a little under two years ago. We had an official opening last June, however we closed right away because we only had the official opening for the family who donated the money for the aquarium. Their eldest relative, it was his last trip so we had a huge opening ceremony party, it was beautiful but we didn't have a lot of fish in the tanks. We closed the building, but we opened again to the public two Novembers ago only on the basis of tours, because our signage wasn't complete and the tanks weren't fully stocked. The tanks aren't fully stocked because the fish have to grow, you can't ship fish big; they have to be shipped very small because of the shipping requirements.

At the time we opened for tours there were very small fish and our signage wasn't complete so we felt like we needed to give the public more bang for their buck. The tours were very educational and our tour guides are very well trained, it helps people feel like they are getting more for their money. This gave us the opportunity to explain why the tanks looked the way they did and why it takes so long for things to grow into. Any aquarium that is new can take a good five years before it begins to settle down.

Paul: What sort of fish can people see?

Liz: We have everything. We have sharks and moray eels and rays. No matter what people say they want to see, the big and the dangerous, that is the first thing they are interested in, but we also have jelly fish and sea horses.

The aquarium itself focuses on the four seas of Israel. We have one fresh water exhibit representing the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) and all the other exhibits are salt water. So we have the Kinneret and then the Red, the Dead and the Med.

We have the Dead Sea because there is nothing in the Dead Sea. It's not a live exhibit, it's an educational exhibit about some of the problems facing the Dead Sea like salt mining.

The beginning of the real aquarium is an introduction to the four seas of Israel. You pass the shore line of the Mediterranean, you descend down into the Mediterranean and you learn about the fish that you eat and sustainable fisheries; why it is important to only buy from sustainable fisheries and what happens when you over fish an area.

You continue down under a tunnel into our big Mediterranean tank, which is 1.2 million litres. Most of the fish in there are caught in the Mediterranean. They come up in trawling nets and they are often damaged. They come here for quarantine. We fix up as many as we can and then they go out into the exhibit. There is a two month quarantine before any fish is allowed loose. They go through various treatments for all the diseases they pick up in the wild.

The 1.2 million litre Mediterranean tank has a 16 meter window with big puffy pillows that you can sit on in front of it. There is an area there for events that will seat 150 people, we've had a couple of Bar Mitzvahs and some hi-tech events that have been really beautiful.

Then you proceed through the Suez Canal, which is very important not just economically to the region, but in terms of invasive species from the Red Sea. You then enter our Red Sea galleries. Our second biggest tank is a Red Sea reef tank, which is just beautiful. This is where you will find a living coral reef exhibit. It is the only living coral in the building because they require very special water treatments. Then as you walk by, we've got moray eels, giant potato cod, which will grow to be about 100-120 lbs and even lobsters.

There are tunnels for kids to crawl through and bubbles for kids to go up into the middle of the tank.