building a tank

fishlover88

fishlover88

AC Members
Jun 26, 2006
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Hey there,

Im looking at upgrading my 55 to possibly a 75 or a custom size. The only thing is im look at building it myself. I was wondering as to how thick the glass has to be for these larger aquariums, and if acrylic glass would be the best material to use.


Any help that could be given would be a lot. Thanks
 
I have a 125g glass and I believe the walls are 3/8" thick and the bottom glass is 3/8" or 1/2" tempered glass.
 
Go to http://www.garf.org/ and look on the left hand side. Find the file DIY pages and open the sub directory "Tank Building". Punch in your desired sizes and go from there. Plexi tends to be more expensive then glass.
 
Thanks a lot for all your help, i checked out that website last night and it was a lot of help
 
fishlover88 said:
Hey there,

Im looking at upgrading my 55 to possibly a 75 or a custom size. The only thing is im look at building it myself. I was wondering as to how thick the glass has to be for these larger aquariums, and if acrylic glass would be the best material to use.


Any help that could be given would be a lot. Thanks
Click to expand...

The cost of the materials to build a 55-75gal tank would be more than buying a new one. I've thought about building my own tank, but after looking at prices for the materials it's not worth it to me.
 
Yes, unless it's an odd custom size, even a plywood tank (with only a glass front) would not be cost saving unless bigger than 300 gallons.
 
plwood and glass is the way to go but as said before if you are going to build one make it worth your while and go big
mike
 
Speaking of building a custom tank...

I have always wondered (but not asked yet) where the good lfs's get thier fancy display tanks from... not the regular ones but the unes that are generaly open top and like 10 foot wide and 4 foot deep with multiple angles and such... maybe a waterfall on the back side wall spilling into the tank? Can you actually buy these somewhere or are they custom built?

I would really like to have one someday (...in my next house) maybe not 10'x4' but definately big and open top with a waterfall on the wall and so you can see the fish through the top instead of the sides (but still through the sides too).
 
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