Any advice on homemade tanks?

M

Michael_G

AC Members
Mar 21, 2005
184
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0
hello
i recently did lots of research on homemade tanks with plywood, liquid acrylic and plexiglass fronts. i wonder if nyone ever made one like this and if they did if they had any problems and how much it would cost me to make a 100g long tank.
 
I am building a wood/fibreglass/acrylic tank myself. When you say liquid acrylic, do you mean acrylic resin for waterproofing? I can't remember where, but I read somewhere that acrylic resin isn't suitable as it is not 100% waterproof and that it is better to use two part epoxy instead. But check your sources on this to be sure. Have you used the garf.org website for estimations yet? It's a great tool.

Care for some DIY links?
 
If you're making a unique or specialy shaped tank then custom tanks rock. If you're just making a tank because you want to, you're going to pay a lot more than you should to just buy a tank.
 
The Smurf is right. I'm not making my tank to save $'s but for the joy of making it. That and a 5' X 5' corner tank is not all that common.

Go to www.garf.org and scroll down the left side to DIY pages. They have a neat tank calculator. I have other DIY links if you are interested.
 
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so you say that if i build myself a 200g tank it would cost me less to buy it?actually i was planning on separating the tank in two . half for a pair or lone jaguar cichlid and the othere half doing somethin else
 
I think the cost really depends on where you live. I have heard of people building tanks for half the price and other people for double the price of a store bought one. I have no experience on building tanks, but I was wondering if it would be cheaper to coat the inside of the tank with thin plexiglass instead of epoxy. because epoxy is quite $$$ and I've heard you can get plexiglass for pretty cheap. :idea2:
 
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