Drilling eurobracing

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davej

Feeder Fish
Aug 24, 2010
3
0
0
Vancouver Canada
davej said:
Need to pick everyone's brains.
I just picked up a 150 gallon 2x2x5 tank.
I am going to use it as a growout tank for a pleco breeding project.
If it makes any difference the front glass is starphire.
It is eurobraced with 3" x 1/2" glass siliconed on top of tank walls coming out flush with the outer edge of the glass.
8251547712_0dd80d26ae.jpg

I want to use a monster eheim 2080 filter that I already have.
The issue I have is that the pickups and returns only bridge a 2 1/2" rim whereas the eurobrace is 3"
8250477151_faf3f2e790.jpg

Do you think I am asking for trouble if I were to drill 3 one inch holes thru the eurobracing on the short side? Will the tank still be structurally strong enough?
Going to check to make sure they aren't tempered.
8251548910_07b3b4124d.jpg
Click to expand...



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If it's needed because the walls are thinner than that could be an issue. Do you know the thickness of the tank walls?

If they are using a safety factor of 2.3, the thickness will be 10MM, but if was set to 3.8 (iirc, that's the typical safety margin for plane glass aquariums in the US) it will be around 12.5MM. If the higher thickness, I think it will be fine, but I've seen euro tanks using the lower safety margins, and the lower one would leave me some concerns without some extra bracing.

The safety margins include a lot of factors including the quality of the glass, so it's possible the glass is simply better than the standard glass used in the US. Also, it could be tempered, which would change a lot of this discussion.

If you do that, you can jerry rig some added cross support afterwards since the tank is still empty.

I haven't built tanks, so someone who knows will be more informative. I'd think they'll want to know if the front and back walls are tempered and the thickness, however.
 
The glass looks to me about 11.5 mm if that's possible.
Definitely not tempered.
I am in Canada so I would think that the tank is probably U.S. made.
My thinking is that if I drill the short side (end) of the eurobrace I would probably be pretty safe.
The side piece is actually only 1.5 feet of the 2 foot width of the tank.
Most of the bowing would occur in the 5 foot run of the front and back glass.
The sides will still have 2 " of glass that runs front to back with just 1" of three will be compromised by the drilling.
 
As well the tank was set up as a reef for many years prior to my having it so i am not worried about the
tank itself, just concerned with drilling it.
 
That works out to a 3.2 safety factor. If you drill as indicated, I'd at least fill it up and watch for any deflection (if any) along the drilled side. If there is any, I'd empty it and add some support. It probably will be fine, but I tend towards safety.

Drilling the short side sounds like the best plan too.

Good luck there.
 
^ I would second that suggestion. Why risk the tank to use those fittings when it would be much safer to construct some homemade fittings.

In my opinion also, since I own a 2080, I find the 2080 to be pretty lackluster when it comes to mechanical filtering. I have mine on a 75G tank and find the intakes are not very powerful at all. Probably due in part to the filter having two intakes so each intake only sucks 1/2 the rated GPH of the filter. I would not recommend that filter on a tank twice the size of mine.
 
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