Planning tropical pond- advice needed on materials etc

[capester]

Hi guys, I am planning a tropical pond/ tank to house fly river turtles and friendly oddballs.
I am looking at 9 feet long x 5 feet wide x 3 feet deep.
Basically thats it- the one stipulation is it has to have a glass panel at the front for viewing (does that make it a tank?) Anyway- We are considering building it from brick and lining with fibreglass or even making a mould and casting it from concrete in situ and then fibreglassing it.
Any thoughts on techniques/ material (wood?)/ thickness of glass etc gratefully received! Thanks

 

[jmtjoy]

Hello,

I am planning to build a similar type of tropical pond/tank for an with an "Amazon look" 16' long by 4 feet wide or 8 feet wide (havent decided yet) by 4 feet deep. It will house a my silver arowana (24"), pangasisus sanitwongsei (18") and some other cichlids, oddballs. It will be built in the basement and I will use plywood/2x4's or 2x6"'s, 3/4" plywood, liquid rubber and fiberglass around the window area to help seal the glass viewing window. I think I will require 3/4" glass. And the whole pond/tank will have to be enclosed so the arowana won't jump out. The plan would be to have tree limbs/branches coming into the water and scaping done to recreate a riverbank scene so the whole thing looks attractive. I like the idea of using a Hydrowizard pump for circulation-saw a demonstration of this pump by Oliver Lucanus at arapaimag's. Good luck with your plans. I would like to see more setups on MFK like this. Fly River turtles are cool, i am looking forward to getting one of them one day.