Cleaning the gravel is done with great difficulty, but I see it as no problem. Are you building the tank yourself? Have you considered the weight of the tank? Making the tank taller wont allow you to put many more fish in the tank, it is the surface area of a tank that allows for more fish(height can play a part although)
Tank sizes
- Thread starter vigu
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vigu said:I was looking over at www.garf.org and apperantly an acrylic tank cant be higher than 30", so I´ll settle for that.
Its not that I want a really tall aquarium, its just that I was thinking of getting some angelfish and I was told that the higher the tank, the better.
Ok so what are the tanks made out of at an aquarium? :duh:
Its not that you cant, its just not recommended. You put in the size (L, W, H)and it tells you what you need and how you go about it. If you put anything higher than 30 inches tall on acrylic, it tells you to change the height to something smaller. Sorry if it came out wrong.
vigu said:
I have seen the site, and yes it does do that. But I would not be too concerned, like I said before if a professional is doing the tank ,then I dont think you will have any problems. No need for appologies I just wanted to inform you that that site is incorrect, and if you were thinking of that size tank then go for it. A tall tank dose look very good.
As I understand it, the issue with taller and taller tanks is that the 'outward pressure' of the water against the acrylic tank sides near the very bottom increases linearly with the depth of the water. Thus the thickness of the acrylic sheet used has to match the outward pressure it will be subjected to. Small 12" tall tanks typically use 1/4" material (or slightly thinner). Medium sized 24" tall tanks typically use 1/2" material (or slightly thinner). Thus if you want to create a 48" deep tank you're probably talking about using at least 1" thick material, maybe even 1 1/4" to minimize any possibility of bowing.
To minimize risk of failure at the bottom joint, with 1" or 1 1/4" material for side walls and bottom you've got plenty of 'meat' available to use a router and make a 'tongue in groove joint' of say 1/2" by 1/2" where the tongue routed into the side wall sheets inserts into the groove routed near the outer edge of the bottom sheet (near would mean 1/2" from the edge for 1" material, or 3/4" from the edge with 1 1/4" material). Otherwise with a simple 'butt' joint you're totally depending on the structural strength of your acrylic glue to resist the 'outward pressure' of the water, which is not a fantastic idea with tanks this tall.
With a 50" length, you're also going to probably need two acrylic span braces evenly spaced across the top of the tank, or if you'd really like 2 * 24" of open tank top surface you could go with a 2"x2" aluminum angle top frame with a single aluminum span brace halfway across the top frame. Better still, find yourself a ready-made top frame with two 24" light fixtures meant for a 48" by 18" standard depth tank, and then tweak the length and width dimensions of your super-deep custom tank to fit this top frame exactly. With a tank as deep as this it's really important to give the tops of the sidewall sheets as much rigid support as possible, along with supporting the bottoms of the sidewall sheets, to help the entire tank assembly resist bowing.
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To minimize risk of failure at the bottom joint, with 1" or 1 1/4" material for side walls and bottom you've got plenty of 'meat' available to use a router and make a 'tongue in groove joint' of say 1/2" by 1/2" where the tongue routed into the side wall sheets inserts into the groove routed near the outer edge of the bottom sheet (near would mean 1/2" from the edge for 1" material, or 3/4" from the edge with 1 1/4" material). Otherwise with a simple 'butt' joint you're totally depending on the structural strength of your acrylic glue to resist the 'outward pressure' of the water, which is not a fantastic idea with tanks this tall.
With a 50" length, you're also going to probably need two acrylic span braces evenly spaced across the top of the tank, or if you'd really like 2 * 24" of open tank top surface you could go with a 2"x2" aluminum angle top frame with a single aluminum span brace halfway across the top frame. Better still, find yourself a ready-made top frame with two 24" light fixtures meant for a 48" by 18" standard depth tank, and then tweak the length and width dimensions of your super-deep custom tank to fit this top frame exactly. With a tank as deep as this it's really important to give the tops of the sidewall sheets as much rigid support as possible, along with supporting the bottoms of the sidewall sheets, to help the entire tank assembly resist bowing.
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