Why not do a pond in a greenhouse , done right ponds tend to be cheaper per gallon than tanks but take more planning to build. My 2 cents
Thinking about a mega tank
- Thread starter Brody's Fish
- Start date
The 'standard' sheet is 8 ft x 4ft but custom sheets can be well over 30ft x 20ft.
Brody... if you are serious about your dream to own something like that (100k gallon tank) then you must start researching and learning everything you can from today on. Start saving and planning now and your dreams will be realized someday. 'If you want it bad enough, go and get it!'
I would never crap on your dream but I would hold off on the scale of it all until your settled. Big tanks are great but somewhere in between a 10,000 gallon tank and a 10 gallon is probably a good option. Also, there is plenty of great fish you can buy locally that would do just fine. I'm totally cool with my 220. It houses enough fish for me to tinker around with plus I don't have to give up on paying bills for my house, wife and kids. Maybe you make a ton when you get older and more power to you if you decide to go big, but either way it's a tank and you can keep something that you will enjoy. I think this hobby can be enjoyed on all scales, so no worries if it's only a 55, you'll have a blast with it anyway. I would follow through with your collection trip even if you only got one specimen. You'd be proud of that one, even if you kept it solo in a smaller tank. The experience would be worth more than the legitimacy of the fish. Good luck either way.
Holy molly, the more I read down this thread, the more I was hoping I'd see a single of these replies.Brody... if you are serious about your dream to own something like that (100k gallon tank) then you must start researching and learning everything you can from today on. Start saving and planning now and your dreams will be realized someday. 'If you want it bad enough, go and get it!'
Guys, kid has a dream, you don't go and stomp on people's dreams.
If he's serious about it, why would you want to crush his dreams and tell him he can't do it?
Sure, tell him it's hard, expensive, and requires a lot of maintenance, that way he knows what he's after, but don't tell him he won't be able to do it. That's not what this hobby is about, and our famous 50000 gal tank with arapaimas should have taught us that.
I for one want an arapaima, it's my dream, and while I cannot foresee it right now, knowing the average cost and facilities, I will own one, I know I will. There's no reason he can't build his 100k, or at least his 50. It's been done, if he pushes towards his dream, he will.
@OP there's a post you can find on these forums about a guy who built his 10000 gallons, upgraded to 25k then 50k. if you can find the post, you can always ask him questions. I see no reason why he wouldn't want to answer, whether it ended up working in the long run, or not.
If you are already independently wealthy and have hundreds of thousands of dollars at your disposal for discretionary spending, you can pursue your dream right now. If you are not independently wealthy, then put your dream on a back burner and focus on your education and/or your career goals to achieve the financial freedom that you will need to pursue your dream.
^^^Exactly, I have my dream too but I knew for sure at this point of my life it never will happen unless I hit a super lottery jackpot hehehe...
If you were in some kinda glass business, and you got a loan to start your business, you could build a tank like that in your shop, and call it a promotional expense for your business. You would also be able to get good deals on glass/acrylic tank materials.
Where I live, there's lots of small oilfield companies, where guys have some special knowledge/experience in the oil industry, so they start their own company, buy a piece of land on a 4 lane highway, build a shop and hire 5-10 guys to work. They don't get "rich", but they all have some kinda high dollar bike/boat/game rooms/old cars/baseball training facilities for their kids' baseball teams-----whatever.
I think a big freshwater tank with some fish from a South American collecting trip is not much different from the collection of Harley's I barbecued in front of at a guy's shop last weekend. 200-300K of motorcycles, guys been collecting them for 5-10 years.
How about the big gun collections people have? I'm sure some of us live in areas of the country where people still hunt and shoot guns--there's always that old man who's done OK in business, has some ridiculous armory with guns he's been collecting for decades--worth more than his house.
You could do it--lots of people do similar things all the time. Start with a 180 gallon, get a 500-600 gallon used somewhere, keep moving up. And while you're learning about FW fish and big tanks, learn a skill that very few people have.
As skill like......high end custom glass construction for large commercial and industrial buildings. Branch out into acrylic one day. Become THE glass/acrylic construction guy in your region of the country. Nothing to it, man.
Or, get a Mechanical Engineering or Architecture degree, but work your way through college at a glass shop. Learn how the glass business works, how they put large pieces of glass into buildings, how to change a car windshield, then when you graduate--start building big glass office buildings.
Where I live, there's lots of small oilfield companies, where guys have some special knowledge/experience in the oil industry, so they start their own company, buy a piece of land on a 4 lane highway, build a shop and hire 5-10 guys to work. They don't get "rich", but they all have some kinda high dollar bike/boat/game rooms/old cars/baseball training facilities for their kids' baseball teams-----whatever.
I think a big freshwater tank with some fish from a South American collecting trip is not much different from the collection of Harley's I barbecued in front of at a guy's shop last weekend. 200-300K of motorcycles, guys been collecting them for 5-10 years.
How about the big gun collections people have? I'm sure some of us live in areas of the country where people still hunt and shoot guns--there's always that old man who's done OK in business, has some ridiculous armory with guns he's been collecting for decades--worth more than his house.
You could do it--lots of people do similar things all the time. Start with a 180 gallon, get a 500-600 gallon used somewhere, keep moving up. And while you're learning about FW fish and big tanks, learn a skill that very few people have.
As skill like......high end custom glass construction for large commercial and industrial buildings. Branch out into acrylic one day. Become THE glass/acrylic construction guy in your region of the country. Nothing to it, man.
Or, get a Mechanical Engineering or Architecture degree, but work your way through college at a glass shop. Learn how the glass business works, how they put large pieces of glass into buildings, how to change a car windshield, then when you graduate--start building big glass office buildings.
John says his tank costs him $2,000/month and it's "only" 10,000G. Over a period of 20 years, that's around a half million dollars!
The initial cost to build a 100,000 tank will be huge, but like others have mentioned it's the ongoing costs that would be brutal (especially if you don't live near the equator and will have to heat it).
If you are serious about pursuing this dream, my best advice would be to move to a tropical location so that you aren't constantly trying to fight nature to heat the thing.
The initial cost to build a 100,000 tank will be huge, but like others have mentioned it's the ongoing costs that would be brutal (especially if you don't live near the equator and will have to heat it).
If you are serious about pursuing this dream, my best advice would be to move to a tropical location so that you aren't constantly trying to fight nature to heat the thing.
It's almost imperative that you live in the tropics, I'm not sure there a public aquariums outside the tropics that have a heated tank this size, would be good to know if there are...
