UC San Diego's Birch Aquarium - La Jolla, CA

Don't miss this aquarium!  The Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography sits on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.  What a view!  It is full of species and habitats from the colder waters of the Pacific Northwest to the warmer waters of Mexico.  It is an interactive museum with an outdoor explorable tide pool.

So how do you take pictures inside a darkened museum with glass fronted exhibits?  This was a first for me too!  And I didn't have a tripod with me.  The first thing I did was to up my ISO to 640.  As I found out later, I could have even used up to 2000 with my Canon EOS 5D Mark II.  I used an f stop of 4.5 and a shutter speed of 1/30 of a second.  I'm pretty good at leaning against a wall, tucking in my elbows and holding my breath at that speed.  But not always.  Next time I will bring a monopod at least! And no flash to eliminate reflections.
Here are a few of the better results:

If you have a small point and shoot camera turn off your flash and/or try some of your scene modes like fireworks or candlelight or indoors.  If you use your flash stand to the side so there is no reflection in the glass.  Experiment!

This ugly boy is a wolf eel.  Friendly, but fierce-looking, he is really a fish.  They live all along the western states in rocky reef-type habitats.  They form pairs and sometimes mate for life!

There's Something About Seahorses is a wonderful exhibit, which teaches about many species and how the aquarium is helping to conserve this threatened creature.  The leafy sea dragon above is a relative of the seahorse.  Breeding seahorses in the tank is below:

Kids love to watch a starfish turn itself right-side-up without breaking the surface of the water outside by the interactive tide pools.

So much fun to see, learn and photograph!