Glass thickness questions

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Fishguy679

Fishguy679

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Oct 30, 2016
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I am thinking of possibly building a plywood aquarium with a glass pane for the front viewing pannel in the distant future. I have a few ideas in terms of dimensions and I need to know how thick the glass should be.

How thick should the glass be for

A 6x4x4 aquarium
A 6x4x3 aquarium
A 6x4x2 aquarium
A 6x3x4 aquarium
A 6x3x3 aquarium
Or a 6x3x2 aquarium
The glass thickness charts are a bit confusing and I'm don't know if there for all glass tanks or plywood tanks or both. so sorry for asking. Also what affects glass thickness the most? Length width or height(I'm pretty sure it's hieght?) And where's a good place to buy glass (links please if possible).
 
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It's all height, at 2ft high half inch is fine.
3 ft 5/8 to 3/4 , 4 ft I wouldn't go less then 3/4 to 1 inch
 
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So length and width don't affect the glass thickness at all? And would 1/2 inch be fine for a 30 inch tall tank?
 
Try this calculator you can play around with the numbers and see what affects they have on thickness

http://www.garf.org/tank/buildtank.asp
Length will affect thickness but not at the dimensions you would normally build an aquarium.
If you were going to build a very long tank with no bracing at all you would need to use thicker glass.
Height is the most important factor.
 
The width does not affect the glass thickness but the length does. However with a plywood build the glass should not bow at all because of the toughened support so mainly height is the factor. Of course tempered glass comes with its benefits as well by increasing the safety factor
 
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Fishguy679 said:
How thick should the glass be for

A 6x4x4 aquarium - 29mm
A 6x4x3 aquarium - 21mm
A 6x4x2 aquarium - 12mm
A 6x3x4 aquarium - 29mm
A 6x3x3 aquarium - 21mm
Or a 6x3x2 aquarium - 12mm
Click to expand...
These are the amounts required for a 3.5 safety factor.

As you can see, at these dimensions, height is the driving variable. Overall tank length does not change the figures from 6 feet and longer in the calculators I have seen, but it does below 6 feet. (That could be due to the calculator or due to some actual material properties in glass.)

So length does not affect thickness at these lengths, however...and this is a big however....the cost of 12 foot is far more than twice the 6 foot cost, and the cost of 24 feet is far more than twice the 12 foot cost. OTOH at shorter lengths (shorter than 6 feet), one can get away with slightly thinner glass.

A 6 x 2.5 x 2.5 tank would require 17mm glass, so no, 1/2 inch would not work.

A 6 x 4 x 4 tank would be "perhaps OK" at 1 inch thick (25 mm.) If the glass is very good and new, and the bracing proper, it might be fine. If the glass was made below average, has been poorly handled, or the bracing is subpar, it could be a problem.

In every case, we are talking about tanks that have proper bracing, (not excessive, nor those missing bracing.)
 
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If I do this tank, I think I'm gona go with a short and wide tank beacause I can't find costom glass larger than half an inch and even if I did it would probably be very expensive. And where's the best place to get glass cheap cut to size?
 
If I did an all glass tank(no plywood) would 10 mm glass be enouf for an 80x37x24?
 
If not how short would the tank have to be with the 80x37 footprint to use 10mm glass
 
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