Aquaria

I have collected some remarkable stories and wonderful incarnations of fishtanks, otherwise known as aquariums or aquaria, and originally referred to as marine vivariums (or vivaria). The 1st photo shows the world's largest cylindrical aquarium, the 25-meter-tall, 900,000-gallon AquaDom, in the lobby of the Radisson Hotel in Berlin. The 2nd photo shows the 2nd largest aquarium in the world, the 1,981,290-gallon Kuroshio Sea at the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium in Japan - the window measures 8.2m x 22.5m and the glass is 60cm thick. Not pictured is the Silverfish Aquarium, a customized series of tanks that Octopus Studios will build to order in 6 weeks.

And now for the weird news:

• November 2009 - A Florida woman with 2 children in her truck struck and destroyed a 1,500-gallon aquarium at the Tampa International Airport (see before and after photos) - the tank was worth more than $50,000 and contained 50 fish and a dozen hermit crabs, of which only a few (including a clownfish, a butterfly fish, and a blue tang) have survived.
• December 2008 - A shark in the aquarium pool at a resort in the Bahamas jumped its barrier and went down the slide into the swimming pool. No guests were hurt, but the shark later died from the chlorine.
• August 2005 - A 61-year-old Australian woman sued the Sydney Aquarium after the glass in a giant exhibition tank shattered, leaving her standing in chest-high water, bleeding from a gash in her ankle, and surrounded by sharks.
• January 2001 - A shrimp hidden in a shipment of display rocks was terrorizing the occupants of a 5,000-liter tank at the San Francisco children's aquarium.

I, too, would have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder if a shark-filled tank collapsed around me, but also if a shark slid into the pool. I would have felt terrible killing almost all the fish in the airport aquarium, but I can't say I would have had much sympathy as I heard the barnacles at the children's aquarium pop...