The Top 10 Largest Aquarium Tanks
6 (tie). Cube Oceanarium, Chengdu, China, with 2.64 million gallons, opened 2015. Located in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province in southwest China, the aquarium was jointly created by the Hong Kong Dragon Group Ltd. and Crossley Architects PTY Ltd. The Ocean Exhibit tank features the largest acrylic panel in the world, measuring 40 m long by 8.3 m tall. Nippura Co. of Japan manufactured and installed it. Advanced Aquarium Technologies, in Mooloolaba, Australia, constructed the rock works, installed the lighting and life support systems and did the waterproofing. The Cube Oceanarium occupies a relatively small portion of the New Century Global Center, at 18 million sq ft, the world�s largest building measured by floor space, along with a huge shopping mall, offices, hotels and the Paradise Island Water Park, featuring a 5,000-sq-m artificial beach, where a 150 x 40 m screen forms the horizon to offer sunrises and sunsets.
Courtesy of Cube Oceanarium
2. Chimelong Ocean Kingdom, Guangdong Province, China�its largest tank containing 5.99 million gallons�opened last year. The Chimelong Ocean Kingdom is an aquatic attraction located adjacent to the Chimelong Hengqin Bay Hotel, an 1,888-room luxury resort on Hengqin Island, close to Macau. Five whale sharks are the largest residents of the largest tank, which features an acrylic window 39.6 meters long and 8.3 m tall. Chimelong Ocean Kingdom is the world�s largest aquarium, measured by its overall volume of 12.87 million gallons. PGAV Destinations, a St. Louis, Mo.-based consulting and design firm, served as the master planner, lead design consultant and lead designer of the 125-acre attraction.
Photo courtesy of Chimelong Ocean Kingdom
9. Okinawa Chuyraumi Aquarium's Kuroshio Sea main tank, containing 1.98 million gallons, opened in 2002. The facility, part of Japan's Ocean Expo Park, was designed by Yukifusa Kokuba. The first challenge the construction team faced was removing a 15-m-deep layer of limestone without using explosives, due to the risk posed to nearby structures. A total of 300,000 cu m of concrete was placed to form the tank, over a period of 21 months, with a maximum thickness of 80 mm. The main aquarium window, measuring 22.5 m long and 2.2 m tall, was a special challenge. Composed of seven smaller acrylic panels, it took a year and a half to produce. Each of the seven panels consisted of 15 layers of 40-mm-thick polymethylmethacrylate, and the panels were joined with a special transparent adhesive. The adhesive bonding was done by slowly heating them to 80 degrees C. The tank measures 35 m long, 27 m wide and 10 m deep. It houses 70 types of corals, whale sharks, stingrays and 80 other species.
Wikimedia Commons
10. L�Oceanogr�fic's largest tank, which contains 1.8 million gallons, opened 2003. The facility in Valencia, Spain, is part of the City of Arts and Sciences, a vast entertainment and cultural complex. The largest aquarium in Europe, L'Oceanogr�fic was designed by architect Felix Candela with structural engineers Alberto Dominguez and Carlos Lazaro. It has curved pavilions of thin-shelled concrete that resemble water lilies. A consortium of ACS, FCC and SEDESA built the structure. The largest tank contains sand tiger sharks, nurse sharks, mahi mahi, Pompano, southern stingrays, bull rays and European barracuda.
Courtesy of L'Oceanografic
3. Future World at Epcot at the Walt Disney World Resort, Bay Lake, Fla. The Seas With Nemo and Friends is an aquarium whose largest tank contains 5.7 million gallons. It opened in 1986 as The Living Seas. It closed in 2005, and, in keeping with the movie �Finding Nemo,� was transformed by 2007 into The Seas With Nemo and Friends. Visitors board �Clamobile and travel through an underwater tunnel through the aquarium. The 203-ft-dia tank is 48 ft deep. Epcot was developed by WED Enterprises, the �imagineering� arm of Disney. WED selected Tishman Construction Corp. of Florida as the construction manager. The 5,000-psi concrete, with a superplasticizer, had to have an 8-1/2-in. slump to prevent voids, and had to maintained at 70 degrees F to slow the heat of hydration and control shrinkage. That was difficult to do in the Florida summer. To control the temperature, workers injected liquid nitrogen into the concrete in the mixer.
Courtesy of Walt Disney Co.
4. S.E.A. Aquarium, Singapore, Open Ocean Tank, which contains 4.8 million gallons, opened in 2012. The Open Ocean Tank contains 50,000 animals. The aquarium�s 49 habitats contain an overall water volume of 12 million gallons. Resorts World Sentosa, the owner of the aquarium, would not reveal the name of the design firm or contractor of the aquarium. Some of the species in the Open Ocean Habitat include large-tooth sawfish, leopard sharks, bow mouth guitarfish, reef manta rays, cownose rays and giant shovelnose rays. The tank features an acrylic viewing panel 118 ft wide, 27 ft tall and almost 28 in. thick, manufactured and installed by Reynolds Polymer Technology. The window comprises of 13 layers that were chemically bonded in stages. The process of engineering and manufacturing the panels in the factory took more than a year. It took another several months on site to assemble, bond and install the panel.
Courtesy of S.E.A. Aquarium
6 (tie). Dubai Mall Aquarium & Underwater Zoo, containing 2.64 million gallons, opened in 2009. It was developed by the Oceanis Australia Group and is owned and operated by Emaar Retail. The tank is 51 meters long, 20 m wide and 11 m tall. It has �walk-through� tunnels that allow visitors to view the creatures as if immersed in the sea. The largest resident is a crocodile that is more than 5 m long and weighs 750 kilograms. Visitors can cage snorkel, which involves immersion within a cage for very close encounters with the aquatic creatures. When built, the facility featured the world�s largest acrylic panel, measuring 32.88 m wide, 8.3 m tall and 750 mm thick and weighing 245,614 kg.
Wikimedia Commons
1. Atlanta's Georgia Aquarium, with the Ocean Voyager exhibit tank containing 6.3 million gallons of water, opened 2005. The public Georgia Aquarium is the largest aquarium in the U.S. and the second largest worldwide, in terms of the total water volume, at 10 million gallons. The 100,000 animals reside in six different galleries, each of which represents a particular marine habitat. The Ocean Voyager saltwater tank is the largest indoor aquatic habitat in the world. It measures 284 x 126 ft, and its depth ranges between 20 and 30 ft. It showcases the life of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System and was designed to feature the aquarium�s whale sharks. Ocean Voyager includes a 100-ft-long underwater tunnel, allowing visitors to get unusually intimate views of the fish. The Ocean Voyager tank�s largest viewing window measures 23 ft tall by 61 ft wide by 2 ft thick. It ranks as the second largest window of its kind in the world. The tank is currently home to four whale sharks, four manta rays, goliath grouper and thousands of other fish. It was designed by Thompson, Stainback & Associates, and Brasfield & Gorrie was the general contractor, self-performing all of the formwork, placement and finish work for the 100,000 cu yd of concrete for both the aquarium and parking deck. Subcontractor Berkel & Co. installed about 2,500 auger-cast piles for the aquarium structure. �It was the most expensive concrete I�ve ever done,� said Eric Young, division manager for Brasfield & Gorrie. �It�s literally two to three times times more expensive than normal concrete.� Numerous admixtures, used to combat saltwater intrusion, shrinkage cracks and other issues, added to the material's cost. The contractor used Lafarge�s Agilia brand of self-leveling concrete to construct the intricate, nonlinear tank structures. Walls measure between 30 and 36 in. thick and as much as 32 ft in height. Individual castings covered wall sections measuring between 20 and 50 ft wide.
Wikimedia Commons
5. The Lost Chambers Aquarium at Atlantis Resort's Ambassador Lagoon tank, in Dubai, contains 2.9 million gallons. It opened in 2008. The Atlantis, The Palm resort is at the apex of Palm Jumeirah, an artificial island shaped like a palm tree, extending into the Persian Gulf. The resort is designed around the mythical theme of Atlantis. The Lost Chambers Aquarium features over 65,000 sea creatures, and includes the Ambassador Lagoon, a tank containing a representation of the ruins of Atlantis. The resort includes two underwater suites that are three stories tall and offer views of the Ambassador Lagoon.
Photo by Werner Bayer
8. The Whale Harbor tank at the Abbott Oceanarium�part of Chicago's Shedd Aquarium�contains 2 million gallons. The facility opened in 1991. When the Shedd Aquarium itself opened in 1930, it ranked as the world�s largest indoor aquarium. Railroad tank cars made trips between Key West, Fla., and Chicago to bring seawater for the saltwater exhibits. As part of a major expansion in 1991, the aquarium opened the Abbott Oceanarium, a marine mammal pavilion designed by Lohan Anderson. The Whale Harbor habitat is home to Pacific white-sided dolphins and beluga whales. The Oceanarium is the largest indoor marine mammal facility in the world. In late 2008, the Oceanarium was closed for renovation and the animals were temporarily moved to other zoos and aquariums. The redone facility, designed by Valerio Dewalt Train Associates, reopened in May 2009.
Shedd Aquarium/Brenna Hernandez
In Lisbon, in 1998, "We could make a stronger emotional connection, using architecture as a tool or method, losing yourself in an immersion experience," says Chermayeff.
Lange adds: “Aquariums are no longer swimming pools for fish, but exhibitions with animals in nature, because visitors don’t want a living museum, they want animals in nature.”
"Public aquariums are places of learning that expose visitors to realities or things beyond themselves. Nature is more immersive than art,” says Chermayeff.
Joao Falcato, CEO of the Lisbon Aquarium, adds. “The 'one ocean concept' holds that all oceans are connected: whatever we do here will have an impact elsewhere. We have a common responsibility to preserve oceans for future generations. We have to take care of the body that regulates the whole planet. In the future we will become conservation institutions with educational programs."
Click the slideshow to see the list.
