New 500g project

[milkman407]

Me and my dad, instead of buying a 2,400$ 500gallon acrylic tank(96"x48"x30")
would rather just buy the acrylic and put it together to save a lil money.

How do you find the square foot of something?
and most places around here charge 30$ a square foot.

How much would u exspect it to cost for the sheets of acrylic?

We save some money by doing it ourselfs, rather than paying for labor.

 

[Euge]

to find the sqaure of something. you multiply the two numbers. so if your acylic sheet was 2 feet by 2 feet it would be 4 square feet

 

[milkman407]

Or save even more money by makeing it all plywood exsept a window in the front would be even cheaper but not as nice

 

[downset21]

i like the idea of the cement tanks. there is one by the anythingfish.net guys... expensive but you can get alot of surface area out of it. how do you like your lima shovelnose by the way? cool fish?

 

[milkman407]

Yea, hes awsome i saw a tiger shovelnose maybe 4" at the same store he was blue i was gona buy him but decided not to untill i get a bigger tank.

 

[messiner]

what happened to the "my moms gonna get me one for christmas" deal?

 

[milkman407]

She still is, she just talked to a guy about a 96x32x30. He hasent emailed her back.
I just think it would save some money to make the acrylic and save 200-300$ on labor and me and my dad do it.

 

[TankBuster]

Now a days you really cant save money on building your own acrylic tank, the cost of material outweighs the price that a tank manufacturer can save by buying in bulk, and if you do decide to do it yourself make sure you practice ALOT, and use solvent #4 by weldon. But you will also need a router or planing table unless you have the shop cut it for you and you will have to specify planed edges so it is smooth enough to bond. Good luck with the project, oh and the thicker material you have will determine if you need to use weld on 16 and that stuff is gooey and hard to work with. Sometimes creates alot of bubbles in the work you have done. Ask the acrylic company for some spare scrap pieces to practice on.

 

[WyldFya]

I'd rather spend the extra $200-300 and sleep easy than have to worry about "did we do it right?"

 

[downset21]

honestly, i think you should buy it... you get warranties with that and like wyldfya said, peace of mind... time to get a second or third job buddy.