Aquariums on board

I did a search here and no mention of Aquariums on board yachts came up.

My professional career was as a aquarist, I have built some very large installations in homes, hotels, resturants and buisness offices. I hadn't though built one on board a yacht. And thus my curiosity?

I would love to design and have built an exhibit on board whatever yacht I do purchase if it does not have one already on board.

So here is my question, How are they made? how are they filtered and most importantly how kept contained while the water, rock work and fish and not all over the decks during passage?!

An aquarium must have water surface to air exchange to allow toxic gases to be released, it is that surface tension and disruption thru either air bubbles or water pump action that keeps the aquarium stable.

So to fill an aquarium to the brim then seal it off from gaseous release would be very detrimental and in a short time the fishes would die off from toxic build up of ammonia and CO2 and other produced gasses.

Also a filter is needing a gas exchange mechanism if the tank itself was somehow sealed. Most marine systems use a wet/dry filter which has a large area of the filter open to the air while part of the filters substrate is submerged. So once again that allows for quite alot of sloshing/risk of overflow if poorly designed/installed et.. Take a look here at this article for a more complete explanation of the gas exchange needed: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2006/6/aafeature2

As far as rocks being able to move with the rocking of the yacht, that won't work either as fish can be trapped or crushed, corals will damaged with each "hit", the aquarium glass or plexi itself will either become chipped, scratched or a breach the seals or panes themselves from impact would occur, there are some underwater epoxies I have used, though I noticed too that over time it did degrade and become brittle allowing with little applied force separation of the cemented pieces!

I had a 55 gallon tank in my living room when I lived in the Keys, a large Queen angle flicked a piece of the coral rock with it's tail and that hit on the glass side was just right to burst the tank! My subfloor had to be taken up , joists removed and replaced and turned out to be quite a expense! There are snapping shrimp that have been known to crack a tank with thier percussion snap! A plexiglass tank of course will solve that problem, though they are more fragile to scratching when cleaned and often have to be replaced every 10 years or so for clarity.

A synthetic coral reef structure is certainly more stable and could eaisly be glued down to the bottom of the aquarium prior to filling, I just think they look as fake as the come! Might as well put plastic fish in along with them not to mention they are bad for a fishes health as fiberglass is not the most compatible grazing material and has caused death to parrot fishes from impaction! So that to me isn't an alternative either http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/images/smilies/mad.gif

How do gimbled frames work? Is this a something that could work? Are frames of this nature dependent on weight to work?

Has anyone on this forum taken a close up look or as a engineer/marine archetect come across doing a system for someone to give me further insight?

Or are the tanks out there just so poorly designed for the health/wellbeing of the occupants and a accident waiting to happen?

Great idea on the baffled insert while underway and a double lid configuration, same goes for a standpipe and also to use a overflow tray. I think using a combination of these methods to be redundant isn't a bad idea in a design. I will have to look further into finding that Midwest company thru my contacts.

I would love to see more examples of tanks in yachts.

Sweet doll had a 3 tank wall unit in it's dining room and what first caught my eye on what was a very unique interior. But as I was told from Garry this yacht was gutted and refit to something more traditional... or as referred to.... something more BORING!


WOW on the 8,000 liter system, that is just huge even for a tank on land, I can see the need for it's own caretaker. I specialized in coral reefs mostly and was at my clients at least once a week for cleaning and stocking, it was amazing the loss of animals from preditors.

I was thinking more on the line of a jellyfish tank in the bedroom and a wall divider of say 300-500 gallons between the dining and salon or up in the skylounge. Or a 3 tank system like Sweet doll had giving more diversity and keeping them less then 50 gallons a tank.

The jelly tank is my favorite and requires a system with no sides, it is a cylinder set on it's side with special flow filteration to prevent the jellies getting sucked up or stuck in a corner. I haven't built one but took a great backstage tour at Monterey bay aquarium when they first went on display, it was a big learning curve to keep thier jellies alive back then. I understand you can buy jellies and tank/filteration systems online now.

Keep the pictures and Ideas coming please!