I ran into this thread on MonsterFishKeepers.com, while surfing the web. This guy built a 8000 gallon tank out of plywood and a couple acrylic sheets.

My virus protection picked up a trojan when I clicked on the link within the linked thread that would take you to his personal website. Be careful.

That is one crazy back yard aquarium!

Yeah, that got me thinking about switching up the design alittle bit. how cool would it be to have a submerged viewing room at the end of the dock. Basically cover the outside in Epoxy and reverse the how the glass is supported....

A guy at plantedtanks.com built this plywood tank from an old 55 gal tank.

There is a cool semi outdoor aquarium at the Virginia Marine Science Museum. You walk down into a viewing area. There is a long plexiglass wall where you can look into the "side" of the pond... Pretty cool!

I remember years ago in a Mechanics Illustrated or similar magazine they showed how to build a submerged viewing tank in a pond.

At Deere and Company headquarters in Moline, the pond/lake out in front comes up about four feet on a glass wall on the outside of the executive dining room. I don't remember seeing any fish peering through to see what's for lunch, but they could.

That's would be a pretty cool idea... Where do you buy plexiglass that's 3" or 4" thick to build something like that though?

I'm not sure I'd trust Plexiglass. I would if it was Lexan. I hope you are sitting down when you see the price... This is for a 4' x 8' sheet.

For a quick price check, I looked in McMasterCarr:

UL Rating Thickness Each
UL 752 Level 1, MPSA 9mm rating .78" 84805K37 $1802.24

UL 752 Level 3, SPSA .44 Magnum rating 1.3" 84805K57 2593.14

Wow! That aint cheep.... It would be cool to have a sunken viewing area off your dock. Sorta like what n8ly does with the diving, but you don't gotta get wet!

I don't know if this applies but I stopped having display cases made for customers out of Plexiglass years ago. The trouble was it it became foggy or looked like had been gone over with a brillo pad over time. Not sure if there are ways to alleviate that or it was the grade of Plexiglass, but it looked terrible over time.

My display cases are now made of plate glass.

What is the material the Bass Pro shops use for their aquarium displays?