Building a Mega-Home Marine Tank (18,000 GA) Need Advice All Welcome

[spiff]

I can say for sure that the idea of simply multipling the thickness of a cheap piece of acrylic to get your desired size is flawed. A one inch thick piece is not the same price as four .25 pieces. The prices get crazy over .5 inch.

When I ordered mine, it was a 1k difference from 1.5 to 2inches. It was close to 4k for a 4x8 2in piece.

 

[xtrememarinetanker]

I think what I may do is break the glass up into 4 sections at 15ft x 7ft (180" x 84") each would have a thick of 0.130, all four equal 35ft = 420" . so by doing so I save money from a continous glass that would have alot of thicknes to sectional and reinforced and cheaper

 

[xtrememarinetanker]

I mean Acrylite not glass

 

[spiff]

I think the best thing you can do is to get a couple designs down on paper, including material lists. I can see the possibility of this thing costing twice as much just so that it can be "broke down" some day. If it winds up that way, it might be worth changing the layout. Besides, then you can customize it to suit the new digs.

A suggestion would be to just go cheap- poured concrete. If/when you move you can take the expensive pieces with you, the panes and stuff. Then you can just pour a new one to suit the new location and you won't be locked in to setting it back up exactly like it was at the old location.

 

[fishfries]

18,000 thats huge! good luck.... post pix

 

[Pharaoh]

I would recommend that you look into using steel in lieu of aluminum. Steel is much stronger than aluminum. I am not a structural engineer, but I would think that aluminum might not be strong enough for this size of tank.

Best of luck with this. I wish I had that kind of budget for a fish tank. LOL

 

[MyFishEatYourFish]

I would recommend that you look into using steel in lieu of aluminum. Steel is much stronger than aluminum. I am not a structural engineer, but I would think that aluminum might not be strong enough for this size of tank.

Best of luck with this. I wish I had that kind of budget for a fish tank. LOL

i don't think steel is good freinds with saltwater, even stainless probably isn't too fond of it.

i think fiberglass would be a little brittle to have the wait of the rock on, i would think that something like pond shield would work much better.
i think if youre doing aluminum though you could just insist on perfect welds and leave it at that, with silicone on plumping and the window. aluminum is inert in typical conditions isn't it?

good luck man, i'm excited to see this thing get started.

 

[coolkeith]

I'm not ridiculous. I said the large acrylic panel at the Georgia Aquarium cost around $15 Million.

The panel you had in mind probably would of cost a few million dollars. Just where do you think you can buy 14" thick acrylic? At that size, 35 feet x 15 feet it would probably have to manufactured in Japan and shipped to where you are. Freight cost alone would be at least $100,000.

Breaking up the panel size so far is the best idea you've had, but it's still going to cost much more than you planned.

 

[Gator]

Your tank isn't 18K gallons 420 x 60 x 180 = 4536000/231 is 19636 Gallons and *8.34lbs a gal = 163764 lbs (82 tons). No way this goes into any already standing structure unless that structure was built for the purpose of supporting 82 tons. Poured reinforced concrete base and walls is probably much cheaper than trying to engineer an aluminum framework. One thing I dont remember anyone bringing up is what effect is the salt water going to have on aluminum.

Now in regards to your filtration, its going to cost way more than $4500 for an almost 20K gallon aquarium. For 20K gallons your going to need multiple units. Your going to need another room for all this stuff as I mentioned earlier and the daily electricity used for this tank is going to be astronomical.
Check here to get an idea of what your looking at spending on filtration for this monster. The $800 Jacuzzi filters arent going to cut it for this tank either. If I could afford to even think about building a 20K G tank I wouldnt be looking at trying to cut costs anywhere especially on the materials for construction or the components like filtration.

 

[johnptc]

where will you get enough electricity to run this tank ???
house of sam has 220V 3 phase 250 amp service.... you will need near double this.

as for filters i would look into 6+ large aquadyne bead filters
thats about $20k and $6K for pumps and contactors.


at that size you will probably need gas fired heaters that will withstand salt water.......... equivalent to about 50kw of electric heat depending on how cold it gets

i would think bio towers would be the way to go for bio filtration
probably six towers 18"x 96"

approx 6kw of uv

you will then want 6 to 8 5000gph pumps for internal circulation


plus some lights 10kw at least as its a deep tank.

given hot summers you also might consider a chiller.



also how will you control the nitrate build up....????

just some food for thought if you are serious about the build..........