Building My 50,000 Gallon Monster Mega Tank

Ocean Railroader

Jack Dempsey
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Jul 31, 2010
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I think I remember seeing the 2500 gallon pored cement fish tank and I really liked the idea of building a giant cement tank vs plywood. But I wounder would cinder blocks filled with cement work out if I can't get to sold pored cement?
 

arapaimag

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This is Jeff Mountjoy a District Sales Rep for Martin Mills Inc. in Elmira Ontario. Jeff has an indoor pond with a Pangasius sanitswongi and 2 large tanks with a large and beautiful Parachromis managuense and a large Amphilophus citrinellus. He has Aquaculture degrees and makes the trout, catfish, goldfish and koi formulas for their fish foods as well as selling their products. I use many of Martin Mills pelleted foods and have had great results.

In the second pic he is standing beside Barb Ireland and has filleted rainbow trout in the styro he is holding. He BBQed them for us and along with the steakburgers we had a great meal.

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arapaimag

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Ocean Railroader;4345050; said:
I think I remember seeing the 2500 gallon pored cement fish tank and I really liked the idea of building a giant cement tank vs plywood. But I wounder would cinder blocks filled with cement work out if I can't get to sold pored cement?
I believe John PTC has used that technique on all three monster tanks he built.
He has had great success and is very knowledgable in all phases of tank construction and filtration. His 2400 gallon tank construction is featured in this Article section.
 

arapaimag

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Ocean Railroader;4345036; said:
Did building the cement walls of this tank take on the same nature as building 3/4 of a swimming pool with a glass wall? Also what type of glass or arylic did you use on building the glass walls of the tank? Was it a speical ordered type or the stuff used in reglar windows but only really thick?Also would inlarging something like this be hard or easy to do?
I really have never built a swimming pool before, but it might be similar. My walls are double rebar every square foot and the concrete is 12" thick on the walls and the floor.

The glass is 1" thick and I was able to buy it from a friend of a friend who owns a large Glass wholesale company. It is non laminated glass.
 

Ocean Railroader

Jack Dempsey
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Jul 31, 2010
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Richmond VA
I think I would have to build the fish tank's walls thicker in Virginia to compensate for the sink swell clay soil that we have here

How much did the super 50,000 tank cost to build? I'm guessing that it would cost $9,000 to dig out and line the cement parts with cement in that we had someone build a 20 foot by 15 foot swimming pool in our neighborhood a few years ago and it cost them $9,000 to build the pool. So think it would most likely be $15,000 for the speical digging and cement linning and possibly at least $6,000 for the custom glass and metal walls. The pumps most likely would be $3000.

Would building and digging out the giant tank be the easy part? While building a filter system with pumps and filters be the hard part of building a giant tank?
 

arapaimag

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This is Terry Little in the first 2 pics and Al ? in the next 2.

Terry is the vice president of the Brant Aquarium Society, A volunteer at Caoac www.caoac.ca and has owned pet shops in the past.

Al no longer keeps fish but is a friend of Terry and Jerry's and has won many awards at shows in the past. He also was a keen Koi collector and owned many very expensive koi.

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arapaimag

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Ocean Railroader;4345133; said:
I think I would have to build the fish tank's walls thicker in Virginia to compensate for the sink swell clay soil that we have here

How much did the super 50,000 tank cost to build? I'm guessing that it would cost $9,000 to dig out and line the cement parts with cement in that we had someone build a 20 foot by 15 foot swimming pool in our neighborhood a few years ago and it cost them $9,000 to build the pool. So think it would most likely be $15,000 for the speical digging and cement linning and possibly at least $6,000 for the custom glass and metal walls. The pumps most likely would be $3000.

Would building and digging out the giant tank be the easy part? While building a filter system with pumps and filters be the hard part of building a giant tank?
I actually never found any of building it easy. I only wish it was as simple and cheap as you just outlined it.

Please keep me updated on your 5,000 gallon tank build.
 

Ocean Railroader

Jack Dempsey
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Jul 31, 2010
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Richmond VA
I had a few drawings and artworks that I plan to post about a idea of building a ayrlic HO scale double track railroad tunnel on the bottom of eather a giant glass or ayrlic fish tank but now after seeing the giant cement and steel and glass fish tanks I'm thinking it might have to go along the bottom of one of these giant tanks.
 
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