Zhuhai, Friday, 29 August 2025.
Chimelong Ocean Kingdom’s Zhuhai park upgraded to commercial-grade sand filtration supplied by Poolking, completed in 2025. The system meets high-volume circulation for large marine habitats, guest pools and show arenas, improving water clarity, cutting chemical use and increasing throughput during peak attendance. For operators, the upgrade improves operational resilience through redundancy for show-critical systems, integration with disinfection and recirculation controls, and sizing for large flow rates. The vendor case highlights procurement trends: preference for turnkey filtration from specialists to satisfy animal welfare, public-health and regulatory standards while lowering life-cycle maintenance costs and chemical/energy volatility. Installation required planned downtime and coordination with facility maintenance teams. Strategically, this reflects ongoing capital investment in core infrastructure to protect animal collections and guest experience. Retail and park professionals should note the operational gains—reduced chemical spend, clearer water, higher guest capacity—and consider similar specifications when budgeting for upgrades or tenders and lifecycle planning insights.
Upgrade overview and project context
Chimelong Ocean Kingdom in Zhuhai completed an upgrade to its aquatic filtration infrastructure in 2025, installing commercial‑grade sand filtration equipment supplied by Poolking; the vendor’s case listing describes the deployment as serving large marine habitats, guest‑facing pools and show arenas at one of the world’s largest ocean theme parks [1].
Why a sand‑filtration retrofit matters for park operations
For park operators and marine‑facility engineers, a move to commercial sand filters is framed as increasing operational resilience by improving water clarity, reducing reliance on chemical dosing and enabling higher circulation throughput during peak attendance—claims the vendor highlights when positioning the system for high‑volume circulation requirements in large marine and guest environments [1].
Technical implications: sizing, redundancy and systems integration
The Poolking case emphasizes technical design points that are salient for engineers: filters sized for large flow rates, stacking and horizontal configurations for space and capacity, and the need to integrate filtration with disinfection and recirculation controls; the listing also notes installations in high‑profile animal and guest environments such as sea lion, manatee and penguin halls, indicating expectations for redundancy in show‑critical systems and coordinated control integration [1].
Procurement trends signaled by the vendor deployment
The vendor presentation frames this and similar projects as examples of theme parks favouring turnkey filtration solutions from specialised manufacturers to meet animal‑welfare, public‑health and regulatory expectations while optimising life‑cycle maintenance costs—an industry procurement trend visible in Poolking’s case portfolio across aquaria, zoos and resort lagoons [1].
Operational and lifecycle considerations for park managers
Operational gains promoted for the upgrade include clearer water that supports guest experience and animal health, potential reductions in chemical consumption and energy use through efficient hydraulics, and improved throughput during busy periods; the vendor material links these outcomes to filter selection and system architecture, while also noting that such retrofits require planned downtime and careful coordination with facility maintenance teams to avoid disruption of animal displays and scheduled shows [1].
Strategic significance for capital planning and asset management
Strategically, the case listing positions investments in core water‑management infrastructure as protective of animal collections and guest‑experience standards and as levers for managing operating‑expense volatility tied to chemical and energy use—points that asset‑management and procurement professionals should weigh when budgeting for upgrades or drafting tender specifications [1].
Notes on evidence and remaining uncertainties
The vendor case provides project claims and examples of installations at multiple major facilities, but specific operational metrics (for example quantitative reductions in chemical consumption, exact flow‑rate figures or percentage increases in throughput after commissioning) are not published in the listing; those performance details therefore remain unspecified in the source material [1][alert! ‘Poolking case listing does not provide detailed post‑installation performance metrics such as measured chemical reductions or precise flow rates, so numerical impacts cannot be calculated from the available source’].
Bronnen