500 Gallon all glass DIY

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slimstickman

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Apr 30, 2013
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Ohio-USA
I work in a glass shop and have access to a tempering oven and one full sheet of 130"x96" 12mm glass for free. Only catch is I need to do it this Thursday. I'm going to interview for another job and want to get all my glass cut for a tank before then.

I'm reading and reading and reading and trying to absorb as much information as I can, but still have a few questions that I would like to run by the forum members to make sure I'm not completely nuts.

Being as I am working with 12mm (1/2") glass and will be tempering the whole tank I believe that I can build the biggest tank for my space which would be 36"tall x 36" deep x 88" long and this would give me a tank holding 496 gallons. I will be doing a flat edge with equipment we have in house and have a vendor set up to drill (2) 1 1/2" holes in my bottom plate for overflow boxes. Timing is critical so that I can cut this, do the edge work and send it off to be drilled prior to tempering. All of this before I turn in my two weeks notice.

Firstly, are my diminsions too large for 12mm tempered in your experiences? I can do full top and bottom euro bracing plus it will be a built in tank so some support will come from the walls surrounding it.

The second most pertinent question in my mind is if I should go with a flat bottom or a floating bottom; this will directly influence my cut size. I have access to 2" thick styrofoam and was planing on covering the top of the stand prior to building the tank.

The wife and I have wanted a large tank for a very long time and it's finally in reach for the cost of assembly materials and the stand build-out. It's going on a concrete floor in the finished basement so I don't think the 5,000 lbs fully loaded will be an issue.

Any input would be appreciated as this would be the only thing that'll make this job worth the year and a half I've put into it.
 
Tempering is a mistake... you'll want regular plate. But definitely take advantage of your hook up and try to get low-iron glass for the front plate at least.

Regular plate will just crack if something hit it, tempered disintegrates. Not something you would want to happen with 500 gallons.

If that piece of glass is your only freebee, then take it as is and then you can at least use it for a smaller tank design. I don't think half inch would work for a tank that big and being tempered would make it even more vulnerable to a catastrophic failure.
 
I'd keep it at 30-32"... theres really not much gained by going to a full 36". It can be a pain to reach anything in a 30" deep tank. Have you considered a larger footprint and lowering the tank height, or is that all the room you have in your space for it?

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I'm also concerned about the failure but I think being in the wall will reduce the chance of it getting hit. I work with tempered glass all day and the quickest way to blow it IP is hitting the edge, otherwise it's pretty tough to break, especially at that thickness. Anyone have experience with full tempered tanks?
 
My only reason for going tempered was to allow for a tank that big. The numbers I was seeing on the thickness calculations were pretty much too low a safety favor otherwise. I've seen a few 12mm 30" deep tanks of similar length. Only thing is that I can't find information as to if they had a tempered bottom or not.
 
Any input on the floating or flat bottom question, I'm going to hit the calculations and come up with some acceptable sizes for annealed 12mm.
 
The Garf.org calculations give me 12mm for a thickness when I plug in my initial numbers. I think I'm just getting more confused.
 
Unfortunately the usual online calculator I use is down (http://www.theaquatools.com/building-your-aquarium), but here is the article/calculations it is based off, done by a very knowledgeable guy on our local forum; http://www.fnzas.org.nz/?p=1732
I've got no idea what the garf one is based on, but no way in hell would I trust a 3' tall tank made from 12mm regular glass!! Their calculator doesn't offer a safety factor, and I'm not surprised with those kind of numbers. I'm going with 15mm glass for my 2400x1200x700mm tank, and from what I recall playing around with the calculator you would want 19mm for 900mm high. According to Warrens article, toughened glass has a tensile strength around five times that or normal glass, but as stated the big downside is that if it does fail it isn't going to be a little crack that gives you time to siphon water or save fish.
 
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