What Makes a Good Custom Aquarium Builder?
Building the perfect custom aquarium is not just a case of putting a glass/acrylic fish tank on stand, filling it with water and dropping in some fish.
There is a huge amount that goes on behind the scenes both in the construction process and in the operation of an aquarium that needs careful consideration and oversight. Whether it’s a small desktop aquarium or a floor to ceiling built in, wall aquarium, it’s important to get all these factors right if you want to have healthy, thriving aquarium livestock.
Choosing The Right Aquarium Equipment
The equipment used to run an aquarium is generally hidden away above and below an aquarium or in a back room away from the tank itself. The amount of equipment used to run a successful fish tank is often overlooked.
A basic tank will generally come with some lighting, water aeration, mechanical filtration (often in the form of a mesh to remove small particles), and biological filtration (often in the form of bio balls or porous ceramic material).
An advanced aquarium will often come with a full computer control system, medical style dosing pumps to add a variety of chemicals, Ozone Generators, UV Sterilisers and a high-powered intelligent LED lighting system that can accurately mimics light intensity and spectrum of the sun throughout the day.
RedFin only use the highest quality aquarium components available. Stability is one of the key issues when maintaining a good aquarium and reliability and ease us use from your support equipment is key in maintaining stability.
Rob and Toshi assembling a large aquarium filtration system for Melbourne Sea Life.
Quality Control
RedFin has a dedicated quality control management team. Whether it’s a water chiller from Italy, some PVC plumbing from Germany or an acrylic panel from China each component will need to go through Redfin’s rigorous testing procedure before it can be considered for use on a project.
Final quality control inspections on a large acrylic aquarium.
Acrylic Aquarium Construction
RedFin use poly(methyl methacrylate), more commonly known as acrylic, for the construction of all aquariums over 1m in height. Acrylic is known under multiple brands including Plexiglas, Lucite, Acrylite and Perspex. Each of these brands create acrylic sheets with slightly different properties.
Some of the benefits of acrylic aquariums are:
Visual clarity. Acrylic if far clearer than glass and, unlike glass, has no green/blue tint.
Safety and durability. Acrylic is far more resistant and less likely to be damaged under impact than glass.
Refraction. Acrylic will distort less than glass when viewing through bends or curves. Acrylic has almost the same index of refraction as water. This means less distortion of what is in your tank. What you see is the actual size and colour of your fish and the decorations in the aquarium.
Scratching. Like any material, acrylic will scratch if not properly taken care of. However, unlike glass, an acrylic tank can be buffed out to remove any imperfections that might happen over time. Acrylic can be restored to optical clarity by polishing (unlike glass aquariums).
Weight. Acrylic is lighter and stronger than glass and can withstand much higher impacts.
Bonds. Acrylic is chemically bonded at the joints to form one solid piece.
Shapes. Acrylic can be easily cut, bent and formed into exotic shapes.
Aquarium Installation
RedFin aquariums have been installed in more than 10 countries world wide. Our experienced aquarium construction team can fly to any location across the world, making the installation of our custom aquariums seamless and ensuring the aquarium and LSS are set up correctly for their occupants.
