Need Guidelines for Building Fish Tank

P

PMaj

Registered Member
Dec 26, 2006
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Hi everyone,
I'm going to try my hand at building my own acrylic fish tank since I have now outgrown by 55 gallon. I know the general rules about any height over 20 inches has to be half inch thickness. The size of the tank and I want to build is 48 x 20 x 24. What I like to know is for the top plate to I really need a center brace instead it being completely open. On my acrylic 55 gallon the center brace gets in the way in anything I do. So if I could eliminate the center brace it would be so much easier to landscape, catch fish, put in a diy background that is a one-piece instead of multiple pieces, etc. By the way how do production tanks get away with their side panes being such a thin thickness. My 55 gallon is 48 x 13 x 20 and it's all made of 1/4 inch thick acrylic.
Looking forward to your ideas and comments,
Pat
 
Usually the frame is what helps them get away without the brace.
 
I have never paid much attention to acrylic tanks - because of the $$ and my lack of - but the couple that I looked at closely seemed to be made of molded acrylic, not fused...i am not sure if that allows them to use thinner material...or maybe they were just being cheap and hoping that nothing would happen.
 
Some of the designs I have seen seem to have a piece of acrylic on the top with a large hole in it. It ends up being several inches wide going around the top opening. Seems to me that what they are doing is using the strength of the acrylic at 90 degrees to brace the front and back so that they don't need anything directly across the center of the tank to provide that bracing. I have never owned or worked with acrylic so I'm not sure but it looks like that was the intent of those designs.
 
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