rocks in your tank - weight v safety

Cool vid, a friend of mine has about 90 pounds of coral spread out in a 75 gallon rectangle tank........:)
 
It makes me wonder if the results would be different in a larger tank though, with it being a 10 gal there are only a few inches from the rock to the edge of the glass, hence support. I don't think in say a 150 gal you could place nearly that much strain on one spot in the center of the tank... Regardless I don't think you have to worry about the weight too much unless you're placing some boulders around.
 
even so, the thickness of the glass is rather proportional to the lengths of glass, when it comes to what can support what. i think the tanks can hold a lot more than most people think.
 
Most of the common rocks at the surface of the earth are only 2.5 times as dense as water. Plus they won't push outward on the tank walls unless you really pack them in the tank.

So as long as the glass can support more than 2.5 times the expected mass of water, then you can put whatever rocks you wanted to in it.
 
While that's reassuring, why do tanks have glass bottoms? It's not like you are ever going to be able to stick your head under the tank and look up. And most people cover the bottom with substrate anyway. Why don't they make tank bottoms with something that's less prone to shatter or break?
 
Probably because of the way they put tanks together. With Acrylic you can use a chemical that actually makes the acrylic melt, so the sides are fused to each other (and the bottom) in a very permenant manner. Glass forms a very strong bond with Silicone, allowing you to connect glass sides together, but attaching those sides to the bottom is just as important. There isn't much around that bonds as well to glass as silicone, and silicone doesn't bond to other materials nearly as well as it does to glass.
 
Tanks used to have slate for bottoms and metal frames until silicone came around. I don't really remember what the old way of sealing was but I think it was some sort of putty.

Q
 
lol cute vid!

I have about 150 lbs of rock in my 55, I don't worry about it. I was pretty careful stacking them though. :p: They're really big rocks.
 
fgump said:
While that's reassuring, why do tanks have glass bottoms? It's not like you are ever going to be able to stick your head under the tank and look up. And most people cover the bottom with substrate anyway. Why don't they make tank bottoms with something that's less prone to shatter or break?
Click to expand...

My guess would be it's cheaper (or at least it used to be) and easier to use glass on the bottom. Zip with a glass cutter, snap it off and instant botttom. If I ever buld a tank I plan on putting particle board on the bottom and covering that with a thin sheet of glass. Should be plenty strong and much cheaper that way.
 
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