The aquarium on shelf by Antonino Butera.
A project recently gave me great emotions. It is a rare sight, but it goes a little unnoticed on a social network like Facebook. Today I am presenting Antonino Butera's beautiful project.
Before describing it, I'm going to ask you a question: What support is your aquarium based on? Wood? Aluminum? A wall perhaps? I guess it rests on something. Instead Antonino's aquarium is suspended. You got that right. We are not talking about 20 or 30 liters, but over 500 liters, with a length of 160 cm. It’s crazy! The very thought can make you shiver. Through this article we are seeing how the project was carried out and how it was possible to make such a giant float.
The aquarium on shelf by Antonino Butera.
The project
Antonino is a longtime reefer. Before the current project he already had two aquariums. But one day, turning on various websites, he comes across this idea: a suspended aquarium. Then his passion and his desire trying something new did the rest.
Our friend began to gather information, he consulted and confronted engineers, surveyors and his trusted shopkeeper, Leo Carcione, to better realize his project. After a few months of research, the idea took shape. A 160 cm aquarium to be placed on 3 steel beams fixed to the adjacent wall, with sump in a separate cabinet and nothing else under it.
Now to make you understand a little, I made a few calculations and the weight that rests on the support anchored to the wall is about one ton.
Antonino struggling with the sand!
The realization
As previously mentioned, the base of the imposing aquarium consists of three steel beams, which have been anchored to the wall by means of plates and tie rods. As you can imagine, the realization times were very long (about six months). The implementation of such a project requires a real restructuring. I have not deepened development costs ... and maybe that’s best!
The support beams to the mega aquarium.
Once the restructuring was completed, Antonino and the shopkeeper did the dirty project. When you design a job like this, you can't go wrong even one millimeter. The installation of the aquarium took three full days. Hours and hours of work to create something you can hardly find around.
The aquarium was made of acrylic (if you don't already know it, acrylic tanks generally are lighter) and is equipped with a sump located in the cabinet behind the tank, osmosis compartment and classic technique (skimmer, balling etc. ).
Some photos about the project by Tony Reef