Today I had an idea,

What if you took a shipping container and added some acrylic viewing panels? Would this work? Would like you guys' input on this.

Thanks,

Will

You will need at least 60mm acrylic, would get away with 20mm in small windows.

A guy overseas did one out of 4 containers

Can't find the link any more, but there was a crowd in the Netherlands who turned a bunch of shipping containers into a huge aquarium for breeding rays and asian arowana. It would certainly be possible to use one as a starting point for a large aquarium, but I wonder if the cost of buying a good shipping container would be worth it over just starting from scratch with steel or concrete (or both).

The thickness of glass/acrylic needed would be relative to the depth of the water, IMO the best bet would be to only have it half full and have the top part with branches and terrestrial plants (and some arboreal reptiles if you live in the right part of the world).

Today I had an idea,

What if you took a shipping container and added some acrylic viewing panels? Would this work? Would like you guys' input on this.

Thanks,

Will

Why a shipping container? You'll have to spend a lot of time and effort reinforcing it and water proofing it, they're far from waterproof. And you'll want to seal the entire inside to keep it from poisoning the water.

For the same price you could get a rainwater tank that is waterproof(Obviously), will not corrode, will not need reinforcement beyond whatever you do for the viewing panels, will not poison the water. Even has ready made ports for draining and refilling for water changes.

I know it would need to be pretty thick acrylic, I was more asking about the feasability of the idea

There's a nice guy just south of Auckland who breeds goldfish and white cloud minnows in these massive used water tank molds. He has half a dozen tanks and they look amazing.

If that's anything to go by, an old container with viewing windows would look fantastic. It's a very cool idea!! Would you open up the top, or rig some type of lights in there? Do you think they would heat up a lot in the sun?

I think the container would make a good frame, it could be lined with ply and waterproofed with epoxy. Cut one side out and add a steel frame to support a window. TBH I think if it were me I'd opt for concrete blocks instead, unless you were dead keen on having 2M+ depth.

Well recently I visited Christchurch's container mall. I thought - Man, it'd be cool to start a public aquarium like this! With the closure of Touch the Sea in Nelson it'd be perfect too... But if I did do it it would be years off...

Will

Just had confirmation from a friend on that side of the globe that the afore mentioned 'mega tank' has been shut down as the price of FW rays dropped to the point where it was no longer viable (and costing them about 700 euro a week to run). They are now using it as an aviary to breed exotic parrots, which is considerably more profitable.

Sadly I can't find any of the construction pictures, these are about the only ones I could find; http://www.mypalhs.com/forums/showthrea ... -Mega-Tank