Water-Themed Playmobil DIARAMA options?

[BlackPearl2006]

Ok, so for all playmobil water-themed toys, like ships, pirates, water planes, floating creatures like fish, dolphins, sharks, etc.....

What options, other than the floor, do you use for water when you play or display?

I like to take my ships to real open waters, but it's not something I can always do.  I've even thought of buying a small kiddie pool (like 5ft in diametre) to fill up with water and try to build platforms around it to incorporate playmobil islands and buildings and such.

I've seen MacGayver's water as what appeared to be painted blue (styro? concrete?).  But what are options for real water?

Not only for ships and sealife, but also for my castle, which comes with a small plastic (fake-water) moat;  I want a REAL moat around the castle that can be filled with real water.

Any ideas/pics of anything that's been done so far?

[bonniebeth]

The bathtub? 




I'm kidding.    So you want to be able to use real water, not just something that looks convincing? Or you just want it to look realistic?

[BlackPearl2006]

The bathtub? 




I'm kidding.    So you want to be able to use real water, not just something that looks convincing? Or you just want it to look realistic?

Well, one of the things I like about Playmobil is that the water toys seem to all float, including the sharks and whales and sealife.  It's just more fun to see them in their environment.  Reading Gaston's thread about the water toys he discovered recently, and Bill's endorsement of the toys, I got visions of large fish aquariums filled with water and decorated with Playmobil toys like the underwater sunken treasure set/ sealife set, the diver in a diving suit, submarine, ships floating atop, dolphins and whales swimming around.  And to make it a bit more realistic, maybe even put real fish in there (like small ones, like Neon Tetras perhaps).

For my castle I was thinking of getting a huge styrofoam block to act as the castle base, then carve out a moat around the perimeter and poor water in it.

Just shootin around with ideas and seeing if anyone else has come up with some already.  I know train modelers use a sort of clear silicon that dries hard to mimic water.  Playmobil already has fake water (stream and lake).  But I was more hoping for real water options, besides the bathtub!

[Bill Blackhurst]

One word of advice. The underwater theme components float more than they sink! Real water works for some projects, but solid surfaces work better!

[bonniebeth]

I like the aquarium idea, if you could effectively weight down the things you don't want to float. I used to keep up an aquarium as a hobby, and I have thought if I ever take it up again, I might decorate it with playmobil. I might wish I was a fish. 

Okay, I'm getting  a little delirious, too.

[Bill Blackhurst]

In our pool last summer I tried to see how the 4469 exploration ships would do, but I found they took on water & listed side ways continually finally sinking! It was very frustrating!

[BlackPearl2006]

In my experience, the most stable ship from Playmobil is the old 3750 pirate ship.  Really hard to sink that ship at all, even when it takes on water it just listhes, but rarely ever sinks without great effort to make it sink on purpose.

I've heard of the expedition ships sinking easily.  I need to get my hands on one and see if I can come up with countermeasures to prevent it.  I think it was MacGayver I saw who made one into an RC ship, and it seemed ok on a calm lake.  I wonder if he had to adjust ballast and/or seal any compartments or seams to make it more stable.

The whales and dolphins do float, so you're right in that they wouldn't be much good swimming in the middle (submerged) of the tank unless you drilled tiny attatchment points into their bellies and added fishing line at various length attached to something weighted so that they can be suspended at various depths in the water, not just at the surface.  But then they'd be fixtures that can't move around.  Unless you add ballast to them so they float, but not all the way at the top.

[bonniebeth]

  Unless you add ballast to them so they float, but not all the way at the top.

Yeah, that would be really cool.

[Bill Blackhurst]

I have many other Playmobil ships like police boats, firefighting boats, 3551 fishing trawler, etc., & now I worry if they are not sea worthy, too! BTW, most Playmobil ships have flat bottoms for land play which may cause the problem of not being able to stay level on water.

[Wolf Knight]

Atto, just get some sea water motivo paper ... its a good, easy and cheap solutin... but there is no watter nor depth...