THE AQUADOM: WORLD’S LARGEST FREE-STANDING AQUARIUM
Photograph by ERIC PANCER
The AquaDom was created by Union Investment Real Estate GmbH and is the world’s biggest free-standing aquarium. It weighs 2,000 tonnes and comprises a 14 metre high cylinder filled with a million litres of water and 1,500 tropical fish. A special feature of the aquarium is the glazed, two-floor elevator at its centre which can transport up to 48 people through a fascinating underwater world to the top of the building.
It is operated by Berliner Gesellschaft für Großaquarien (BGG), which received the Blue Starfish Award for the first time in 2009 in recognition of the company’s outstanding work for the protection of marine fauna. State-of-the-art sustainability standards were also applied to the AquaDom, where BGG is currently propagating coral in breeding tanks. In a test run, coral was suspended in the aquarium in a specially constructed acrylic glass bell with water flow. The aim behind converting the marine world into a reef aquarium is to create a shared space for fish and coral in the AquaDom. [Source: DomAquaree]