Acrylic lid thickness.

[fishhead0103666]

I'm planning to make a lid for my 75 gallon out of acrylic for various reasons that are not important but I can't seem to find very much information regarding how thick the pieces should be. Each thread I found that was about how thick acrylic should be for a lid eventually went the way of "use this product, its better" or something similar. I'm set on acrylic, I will not use glass or an alternative. Given that I'll be doing two pieces of 24" x 18" I'm thinking that I could get away with 1/2" inch thick acrylic on each piece without them eventually bowing downwards due to gravity. Does anyone have an opinion they could share regarding the thickness?

 

[tlindsey]

I'm planning to make a lid for my 75 gallon out of acrylic for various reasons that are not important but I can't seem to find very much information regarding how thick the pieces should be. Each thread I found that was about how thick acrylic should be for a lid eventually went the way of "use this product, its better" or something similar. I'm set on acrylic, I will not use glass or an alternative. Given that I'll be doing two pieces of 24" x 18" I'm thinking that I could get away with 1/2" inch thick acrylic on each piece without them eventually bowing downwards due to gravity. Does anyone have an opinion they could share regarding the thickness?

I remember using acrylic sheets for a lid and eventually it did bow over time. Now I just stick to using glass.

 

[squint]

Use very thick acrylic or much thinner polycarbonate (which doesn't warp nearly as much). A lot of custom acrylic manufacturers offer polycarbonate lids as an option.

 

[Bertie07]

I had thin prices of acrylic as lids but they did bow, I would use greenhouse roofing of corregated plastic as it’s much cheaper and pretty indestructible. I use it on my tank and it looks ok

 

[fishhead0103666]

I was wanting to use acrylic because I knew I could cut it fairly easily but never thought to research other materials that could in fact be better then acrylic.

Use very thick acrylic or much thinner polycarbonate (which doesn't warp nearly as much). A lot of custom acrylic manufacturers offer polycarbonate lids as an option.

Something like this?
https://www.amazon.com/Polycarbonat..._rd_t=40701&psc=1&refRID=K112ZXHDGE3G9653B7AJ

The thing is that most likely it wouldn't be supported on the normal 3 sides like a normal glass hood would be or so. Going off of my designs for the tank regarding my ideas for various plants that come out of the water it will most likely be supported only on 4 areas on all 4 edges. Think of a square with a smaller square on each edge of the square where the corners meet. Does that make sense?

 

[Jexnell]

Ya I wouldn't use acrylic it's warps big Time due to it being different temps at the same time. The area over the water stays warmer, the area that hold it up stays cooler so in time it will bow.

 

[fishhead0103666]

That explains why I never found much information regarding acrylic lids :/. Still beats glass lids because I constantly take them off and put them on the bed then forget they’re there and sit on them .

 

[squint]

I was wanting to use acrylic because I knew I could cut it fairly easily but never thought to research other materials that could in fact be better then acrylic.

Something like this?
https://www.amazon.com/Polycarbonat..._rd_t=40701&psc=1&refRID=K112ZXHDGE3G9653B7AJ

The thing is that most likely it wouldn't be supported on the normal 3 sides like a normal glass hood would be or so. Going off of my designs for the tank regarding my ideas for various plants that come out of the water it will most likely be supported only on 4 areas on all 4 edges. Think of a square with a smaller square on each edge of the square where the corners meet. Does that make sense?

PC isn't really any harder to cut than acrylic. I just went to the local plastics store and gave them the dimensions.

If it doesn't need to be transparent you can get translucent Coroplast. It's cheaper, easier to cut, and more rigid. Sign stores should have it.

 

[fishhead0103666]

I'm not going to be having set measurements on where to cut because I'm going to have to cut around a lot of objects so I couldn't really tell someone "Cut 6 inches to the right, an inch into it then curve back around another inch".
Nah, my plants are going to need the light so transparent is the way to go.

 

[TexasMFK31]

I would go with the double wall greenhouse walls.

https://www.google.com/search?q=twi...ndroid-google&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8