Fusing two ten gallon aquariums together?

My current 250gallon L shaped tank was made using an old 70 gl. fused with custom 180 gl. sized pieces of glass.

I had to join 2 bottom pieces, so I used the spare glass sheet of the 70. gl tank to reinforce the bottom seal. I used almost 1 whole tube tube of silicone in that joint.

Also, the back panel has 2 pieces of glass glued together in a straight line. The original plan was to reinforce them with a piece of glass in the back, but for some reason I forgot to do that, and the silicone bead has been holding like a champion. However, this tanks has a lot of reinforment crossbars covering the entire perimeter and across. Also, it looks ugly and I have a plastic plant covering that zone.

Separating the glass was also difficult. I used 3 different knives to help me, and also the glass got a little cracked in the edges.

Perhaps the smaller 10g. tanks would be easier to work with, but, honestly, it would be easier and cheaper if you go to the glass shop and buy some brand new glass sheets and biuld a new tank.
 
patoloco said:
Perhaps the smaller 10g. tanks would be easier to work with, but, honestly, it would be easier and cheaper if you go to the glass shop and buy some brand new glass sheets and biuld a new tank.
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IME the costs would be near the same,
new : glass : silicon : tape : razors : tool's to keep the tank square ie speed square
used : silicon : tape : razors thats it .. you can use the existing sqaure shape to base the moved sheets, but your silicon costs is going to double on this one for the reinforcing, but that is more then offset by not having to buy speed sqaure or someother 'squareing tool'
 
I'm thinking on the "build from scratch" tip after reading all of your replies. I definately think I might even get really crazy and build it with different levels for land areas and water areas.


Oh and just a reminder: this is a newt tank as I said, so it's not meant to hold much more than 5 gallons of water or so.
 
My 10g tanks only use 1/8" glass. The safety factor of the glass would be at a minimum if you joined 2 10g tanks together with 1/8" glass. My 15g tanks have 3/16" glass, so for a 20g tank the glass should be atleast 3/16".
 
It's a lot more expensive, but I think I'd go w/ a 24g Aquapod (not the ones w/ the electrical difficulties). :eek:

There are a lot of these "pod" type setups coming out. Resun and Oceanic are jumping into the fray.

Then again, you wouldn't have four sides of a cube w/ those other types, and that is something really neat. Hey, All-Glass Aquarium, are you guys listening to this?

v/r, N-A
 
If the water depth is the same, the thickness shouldn't matter if its braced properly to prevent bowing. The 1/8" works fine across the front, no reason that it wouldn't work on the sides as well. you could use 1/8" for a 1000gal tank as long as it stayed 12" deep and was braced so the glass didn't bow out.
 
sploke said:
If the water depth is the same, the thickness shouldn't matter if its braced properly to prevent bowing. The 1/8" works fine across the front, no reason that it wouldn't work on the sides as well. you could use 1/8" for a 1000gal tank as long as it stayed 12" deep and was braced so the glass didn't bow out.
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Not true. Water pushes up, down, and sideways. Increasing water volume is like adding more freight cars to a train. The heavier the train is the harder it is to slow down. A wave of water is a runaway train. If you were to suddenly put your hand into the tank, causing a ripple or wave, you would probably bust the tank. In other words all the water weight in the tank gets pushed sideways before it gets pushed up.
 
Keep in mind that the tanks have glass that can hold a certain amount of water... the larger the tank the thicker the glass... fusing the 2 ten gallons i see a disaster happening... go to you local petland, petco, petsmart or your LFS, and buy a 20 extra high the money you'd spend trying to fuse the two 10's together could easily buy you a new tank
 
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