Indoor reef for SCUBA diving

[nunofs]

I won't even try to explain this in my own words, so I'm quoting from their homepage:

A group of divers in the Chicago area have gotten together and decided to make a way to bring tropical diving to the Midwest year-round. We will build an indoor salt water reef targeted for use by scuba divers. Scubaquarium indoor reef dive facilities will create an indoor dive experience that is unmatched in the world. The facility will provide a living reef containing coral, invertebrates, and reef fish.

and

The reef is an indoor salt-water tank that is 82 feet long, 75 feet wide, and up to 20 feet deep.

That's around 800,000 gallons (look at the pool plan to see average depth)

See http://www.scubaquarium.com

Nuno

 

[skatezen]

I saw that a while ago and meant to post it. It looks pretty cool.

 

[MarkO]

Now that's a big tank!

 

[Jill & Brian]

With a tank that big, I can only imagine the size of their skimmer

 

[joefitz]

Hmn, the Boston area could sure use one of those...although scuba is a bit much, I would think skin diving/snorkeling would be sufficient, no? How the heck are they going to light 20' down?!?

 

[marco67]

That site is dripping with "we don't have the funding yet but wouldn't it be cool" and
"If we generate enough interest our inversors will take us seriously"
That being said ...Yes! it would be real cool!

 

[nunofs]

Right... they seem to be a group of SCUBA divers, it's not clear how much experience/knowledge they have about reefkeeping... assuming it's feasible to properly light such a deep tank, they would need a huge number of customers/dives just to recover the running expenses... and limiting access to members only doesn't seem to allow for that.

Nuno

 

[Moe_K]

These guys would do well to team up with their local reef-keeping group.

 

[synchiropi]

assuming it's feasible to properly light such a deep tank, Nuno

Maybe natural sunlight supplementation?

But yeah, a system SO large would need to take energy savings into consideration. Maybe also work as a public aquarium??

Would this be the largest indoor reef? i.e. bigger than Atlantis aquarium? Just wondering.

 

[joefitz]

I'd agree, it appears to be either a well nice looking hoax or more likely, just a bunch of people that most likely don't have extensive knowledge of what it would take to actually accomplish what they are pitching. I wish them the best though!

 

[~Flighty~]

After seeing the puss lips pictures I would think twice about swimming in my tank.