How do you know when an aquarium is about to burst?

[milestogo]

How do you prevent it?

I always thought an aquarium would leak before anything else. An aquarium exploding is actually a pretty scary thing.

Engineers?

[Disaffected]

1. Could have started leaking or

suffered rapid catastrophic failure. Just guessing but one possibility is that a stress crack developed in one of the acrylic panels which propagated rapidly (due to acrylic being quite brittle and the considerable pressure near the bottom of the pool) until the crack became so long that the panel suddenly blew out.

Similar to a dam breach I guess - leaks slowly, maybe with increasing rapidity or opens very suddenly without warning.

As far as preventing it, could have been a design, construction or maintenance flaw which can occur even under favourable circumstances. The unusual construction & size of the thing probably lent some uncertainty as well.

As the old saying goes, doctors bury their mistakes, engineers have them on display.

[milestogo]

6. Yeah, I wonder how much that installation cost.

And I wonder if its one of a kind.

I guess they should have inspected the inside more frequently for cracks. I wonder if they can figure it out from all the pieces.

[hlthe2b]

2. Someone posted this morning that workers knew it had been leaking for months

but no decision had been made as to what to do about it.

[Disaffected]

3. Which may or may not

have had anything to do with the final failure. We will have to wait for the engineering analysis.

[hlthe2b]

4. Yes. I don't see that I suggested otherwise. It does suggest neglect in upkeep.

[RAB910]

5. A good read

https://www.plasticstoday.com/materials/when-acrylic-aquariums-fail

[milestogo]

7. Thank you.

[Mosby]

8. this one was glass

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11547063/Fish-tank-disaster-caused-terrible-human-losses-exploded-just-hour-later.html

It may have happened because of extreme temp changes.

[RAB910]

9. Not according to this

https://www.plasticstoday.com/materials/massive-acrylic-aquarium-bursts-berlin-hotel