Building My 50,000 Gallon Monster Mega Tank

[goldclownknife]

Although I have built ply wood tanks with glass fronts, I have only assisted a glass tank builder named John Pettersen (now lives in Virginia) on a few glass tanks. This man is amazing building tanks. He built 2,000 tanks working at a manufacturer in one year once. He is an engineer and unfortunatly is too busy in that field now to work with or keep fish (Had over 140 tanks of his own in his house).

He uses 1/2 glass on the sides of a 180 and either 1/2, 5/8 or 3/4 on the bottoms. He recommends GE1200 silicone. He built my 360 8x2x3 using 3/4 and my 800 (8x4.5x3) using 3/4. He is the fellow pictured installing the glass in my 50k+ he also installed and largly built my 15k. I have never built a plexi or acrylic tank. I bought 2 acrylic tanks (500 & 600)from Aquart near Columbus Ohio (Rich Gould - owner) that I saw in advertisement in FAMA.

Good luck with your plans & hope this helps

Alright thanks, for the info. Good to know for the thickness, cause I had no idea what it should be. I'll prolly start getting prices for pieces of glass and see what works out better for me. Also, i'm not to far from columbus so perhaps i'll look up Aquart and see if I can afford a nice size tank from them. Thanks for all the help.

 

[goldclownknife]

Whoops almost forgot, you mentioned plywood tanks, are they any good? I found instructions on building them, are they worth it? Or is it better to just build/buy a glass or acrylic tank?

 

[freeskierrocket]

the wife hates that i have a 125g, a 30g, a 5g, and a .5g (betta)........amazing, i'd be living in that tank if i ever tried anything close to that...hahahahah!!! love it man......

 

[arapaimag]

Whoops almost forgot, you mentioned plywood tanks, are they any good? I found instructions on building them, are they worth it? Or is it better to just build/buy a glass or acrylic tank?

I built two plywood tanks. One was 8x4x2. I bought 2 plywood tanks prior to building my own. They all lasted about 10 years before any leakage. They cost less to build than buying a glass tank. The new techniques in building probably will allow for a lot longer tank life.

 

[goldclownknife]

I built two plywood tanks. One was 8x4x2. I bought 2 plywood tanks prior to building my own. They all lasted about 10 years before any leakage. They cost less to build than buying a glass tank. The new techniques in building probably will allow for a lot longer tank life.

If they last that long, I'll look more into that, cause I dont need anything real fancy, just something with some room for the poor guy to have swimming room. Thanks, i'll let you know what I end up with.

 

[congealedmeat]

amazing work!

 

[AfricanGreyDude]

im absolutely speechless. as im lookin @ this thread i notice u keep alot of fish and also alot of parrots. i have 9 african greys and also a breeding pair of green wing macaws witch i have produced 3 chicks off. im sorry to go off the subject of your amazing aquarium. but im scared to admit i only have a 400g tank lol witch is like 1/120 of the size of your tank? lol. i dnt keep "monesters" but i got some 14" oscars and a giant raphael catfish in they're @ the moment as it is only 5 months old i run 4 Fluval externals and i still have to do 75G per week water changes. im absolutely amazed @ the size of your tank.

i would like to learn more about your experience with australian kings as i got offered a trio of 12 year old specimens. 2m / 1f. witch i relunctantly turned down as i have no space for a new aviary. the aviary i keep my greys in is 15ftx12ftx8 (lxwxh) and my macaw aviary is 20ftx15ftx10ft (lxwxh) i have plans of addin more pairs of macaws to my aviary but i've got to build some breeding pens where i cna isolate the pairs off to if i decide to get more pairs.

how many greys do you have and in what size aviary? and also wot the the aviary brood that the greys produce? as im interested to know wether the different habitat that they are in wether it affects the brood size?

any info would be appreciated. my hat is off to you. myt see wot funds i can peice together to get myself a 2,000G tank . *dreams arrowanas and RTC*

 

[h3llphyre]

Utterly amazing work. You are my new envy of the new year. I constantly dream of doing these types of things, but never have the nerve to just go and do it. Major kudos to you.

 

[jonnyrotten]

You could charge admission to the local public schools, education for the kids and it will help pay the bills...

 

[arapaimag]

im absolutely speechless. as im lookin @ this thread i notice u keep alot of fish and also alot of parrots. i have 9 african greys and also a breeding pair of green wing macaws witch i have produced 3 chicks off. im sorry to go off the subject of your amazing aquarium. but im scared to admit i only have a 400g tank lol witch is like 1/120 of the size of your tank? lol. i dnt keep "monesters" but i got some 14" oscars and a giant raphael catfish in they're @ the moment as it is only 5 months old i run 4 Fluval externals and i still have to do 75G per week water changes. im absolutely amazed @ the size of your tank.

i would like to learn more about your experience with australian kings as i got offered a trio of 12 year old specimens. 2m / 1f. witch i relunctantly turned down as i have no space for a new aviary. the aviary i keep my greys in is 15ftx12ftx8 (lxwxh) and my macaw aviary is 20ftx15ftx10ft (lxwxh) i have plans of addin more pairs of macaws to my aviary but i've got to build some breeding pens where i cna isolate the pairs off to if i decide to get more pairs.

how many greys do you have and in what size aviary? and also wot the the aviary brood that the greys produce? as im interested to know wether the different habitat that they are in wether it affects the brood size?

any info would be appreciated. my hat is off to you. myt see wot funds i can peice together to get myself a 2,000G tank . *dreams arrowanas and RTC*

First I would like to welcome you to MFK.....

Congrats on breeding your green wings. You can buy a lot of fish selling those babies.

A 400 g tank is great.. I can still remember as a kid having a 10g homemade angle iron tank and I thought it was huge. I've never raised an oscar to 14" so you've beaten me big time.

regarding the birds please email my basketball's email address at the bottom of my basketball teams website. www.spitfirechallenge.ca The message will be passed on to me and I can reply.