Ocean Railroader;4338930; said:
Here is a photo of what the basic idea would look like when it is built. The train tracks go though a tunnel opening on one side of the fish tank and come out the other.
It sounds like on this forum that the idea could work out in a custom built aryrlic fish tank. But could this idea work out with aryrilic tube running along the bottom of a giant plywood tank or a cement fish tank's bottom?
The giant plywood tank and a fish tank with a cement bottom are both do-able. Yet again, it depends on how much time, effort and money you want to put into it.
Living in Arizona makes it hard to communicate ideas when you are in Virginia, but also a do-able thing. I wish I lived within 50 miles or so, I come over and discuss it face to face, but I'll do what I can on my PC.
I have some ideas on how this could be done using both options for tanks. The cement bottom, though, would be the more difficult of the two. You have to seal the cement to keep the limestone and lye tannins from leaching into your tank water, (limestone & clay are the base elements of what cement is made from). If the cement tannins happen to leach, the fish stock will die. The cement sealer is not cheap unfortunately. Runs about $135 to as much as $275 dollars a gallon. Shipping is inclusive, though.
With using just an acryllic tube for your tunnel, how do you get straight walls, like what is in you drawing? You may have to get your tunnel custom made from an acryllic fabricator.
Using plywood also presents an issue with your viewing window. In order to see the train going through the tunnel and your fish at the same time as shown in your illustration a couple of things must be done. Before you put your glass into your plywood tank, you would have to get the glass cut in order for your tunnel to be installed. Once the glass is cut to fit your tunnel, then you would need to get the glass tempered. You can not cut glass after it is tempered. It will shatter into a many tiny pieces of glass. So these are things to consider. The length, height anf thickness of the glass is also another consideration. The thickness of your glass is determined by the length and height of your glass. The bigger (L x H) the thicker the glass.
You could also build a plywood tank and use acryllic for your viewing window. Again though, the bigger the viewing window, the thicker the acryllic.
Either way you go, glass could be 3/4 to 1.5 inches thick. Acryllic could be 1 to 1.75 inches thick.
Think about this and get back with me in a PM and I'll send you my e-mail address and then we could discuss this further.
