A new 80 tank aquarium was completed in 1952. It was built by the George Mottershead’s daughter June and her husband Fred in their spare time. In the two years it took to complete, June and Fred spent hours working on it by lamp light and had to cast by hand the 130 pillars needed to support the building. It was opened by zoo council member Miss Geraldine Russell Allan in 1952 after two years of construction and featured an innovative design where the flat roof was flooded with water. It was populated with fish that could be viewed from below through glass hatches. It might have seemed like a good idea at the time, but before long reports were coming in of fish falling out of the sky as birds began to start carrying all the fish off.