Swedish fish - behind the scenes rebuilding a public aquarium

tripdad · Jan 10, 2020

Well played Sallstrom, well played!

Brew12 · Jan 12, 2020

I have a question for the pro's. What do you do about corals growing out the top of the tank? Should I cut them back before they grow above the waterline?

Lasse · Jan 12, 2020

You mean like this

I normally do nothing but I need to use my tooth brush now an then because it could be an ideal spot for build up of cyano bacteria mats

Sincerely Lasse

NY_Caveman · Jan 12, 2020

Sallstrom said:
Post #2000!
Throwback Friday!

LOL! I fell asleep. Glad if I did not get it, you did. Congratulations on a unique thread! Amazing you have 2,000 posts before the aquarium is even built.

FARMBOYREEF · Jan 12, 2020

Sallstrom said:
Hi

I thought I might start a new thread writing about our journey building a new public aquarium. I work as a marine biologist and aquarist at The Maritime Museum & Aquarium in Gothenburg, Sweden. I think I've been here about a decade now. Time flies

The Aquarium was founded in 1923, and moved into the museum 1933 when the museum building was completed. Over the years the Aquarium has housed lots of different animals, from Galapagos turtles to monkeys. But since 2001 there's only aquariums. And since 2009 only marine tanks and animals.

We are a non profit museum, funded mostly by the the city of Gothenburg and a foundation. But we also need to get some sponsors, so if you....

Here a picture just to lighten up amongst all this text..

Here comes some info on the Aquarium today. We got about 20 tanks running in the exhibition, from 50L to 25 000L. The total water volume now is around 50 000L. We've focused on tropical reef habitats and Swedish temperate coastal waters.

We are five people working full time in the Aquarium, but mostly three of us are responsible for the aquariums.

And another picture to get people to read the rest of this long post..

I've written some about our 10 000L reef tank in my build thread in my profile, so there you can find a lot of pictures of that tank and some of the others.

In this thread I will try to share our work from today until we open the new Aquarium in the fall of 2021.

We closed the museum this Sunday, and our first step is the build a temporary Aquarium in the room where the museum restaurant used to be. Unfortunately we need to clear the old Aquarium facilities before we can move into the new Aquarium, therefor this temporary solution. Our aim is to start up the new tanks with as much "homegrown " corals as possible. And since we're planning on a reef tank with 400 000L water, we will need a lot of corals

Corals corals..

I hope you would like to follow our journey from a small public aquarium to a medium size. Please feel free to ask any questions you want(or tell me I'm stupid if you think I'm stupid ).

So, here's some pictures from this week, the week after closing.

This is where the temporary Aquarium will be located

Okey, that was the startup of a new thread. More will come!

Best regards
David

Amazing

Sallstrom · Jan 13, 2020

Brew12 said:
I have a question for the pro's. What do you do about corals growing out the top of the tank? Should I cut them back before they grow above the waterline?

I want to say we cut them back before they reach the surface. But many times we have been occupied with other more interesting tasks, so theyvalmost created small islands

Like Lasse wrote, the tips will die and become a place for algae and Cyanobacteria to grow. Sometimes in large quantities because not many herbivores want to graze in the water line. And that algae will lower the flow in that area, which might lead to other bad stuff.

Brew12 · Jan 13, 2020

Sallstrom said:
I want to say we cut them back before they reach the surface. But many times we have been occupied with other more interesting tasks, so theyvalmost created small islands

Like Lasse wrote, the tips will die and become a place for algae and Cyanobacteria to grow. Sometimes in large quantities because not many herbivores want to graze in the water line. And that algae will lower the flow in that area, which might lead to other bad stuff.

I think I'll cut them short before they hit the surface then. No reason to ask for trouble!

Sallstrom · Jan 19, 2020

At least they’ve built something

The building company has started to pile up work cottages (I didn’t find any English translation, so feel free to help me learn a new English word).

For the Temporary Aquarium that means we soon will only have access to three rooms in the museum building. At the moment without doors in between. So the next step will be to do two doorways. Therefore we had to move a large (and rebuilt) calcium reactor to make room for the doorway.
Here are before and after pictures. The door will be straight ahead.

Lasse · Jan 19, 2020

Looks good David!

Sincerely Lasse

Brew12 · Jan 19, 2020

Sallstrom said:
At least they’ve built something The building company has started to pile up work cottages (I didn’t find any English translation, so feel free to help me learn a new English word).

For the Temporary Aquarium that means we soon will only have access to three rooms in the museum building. At the moment without doors in between. So the next step will be to do two doorways. Therefore we had to move a large (and rebuilt) calcium reactor to make room for the doorway.
Here are before and after pictures. The door will be straight ahead.

Love what you are doing, but that wiring makes my inner electrician absolutely cringe!

Victoria M · Jan 19, 2020

Tell us more about these work cottages. The blue trailers stacked on top of one another? Will they remain stacked?

Tristren · Jan 20, 2020

Sallstrom said:
At least they’ve built something The building company has started to pile up work cottages (I didn’t find any English translation, so feel free to help me learn a new English word).

They're called Office Trailers or Construction Trailers around here. I don't think I've ever seen them stacked before though.

They are building a new Light Rail system here and in one of the sites nearby they joined a dozen or so together for a big office. But horizontally in a square. I thought that was interesting enough because when it was done the middle ones didn't have walls, so just the roof and floor. But multistory beats that I guess.

Tony

Lasse · Jan 20, 2020

Double post
Sincerely Lasse

Lasse · Jan 20, 2020

They are normal freight containers that have been altered into different modules like office, "fika"room, rest room, bed rooms and so on. They are standard at Swedish construction sites. They can be stacked very high - have you ever seen a container ship

.

Sincerely Lasse

Brew12 · Jan 20, 2020

Lasse said:
They are normal freight containers that have been altered into different modules like office, "fika"room, rest room, bed rooms and so on. They are standard at Swedish construction sites. They can be stacked very high - have you ever seen a container ship .

Sincerely Lasse

I saw them all over in Switzerland last year at different renovation projects. They stacked them right on the sidewalk. Inconvenient for foot traffic but great for workers.