New Tank Build

[Aquadog]

Well, the time has come and some purchases have been made. Did a lot of reading, suggestions from this site and Reef Central. I'm starting my journey of making the largest aquarium I have ever built. I tell my wife it's just a 480g 8' x 4' tank....I will let your imagination run with what look I got.

My hope is she enjoys watching the new fish she picked out grow big and I can say, told u so!

Overview of the tank-
It will have 1/2" plate glass (not tempered) front and sides and a 1" thick PVC bottom. I going to brace the top with 1/2" thick 6" wide euro and 4 extra cross bracing. The bottom, I will attach a 2" x 2" steel or aluminum angle around the base of the PVC with 4 additional pieces of flat bar stock spanning front to back to help with bottom bracing and adhesion of the glass to PVC with Dow Corning 795 silicone.

I think I will also go with the 2" x 2" angle and flat bar for the top as well, siliconing the flatbar to the 1/2" cross bracing.

I have all my glass and silicone now, getting the PVC next week. (2 hour drive) uggg...

To help with the DC 795 adhesion to PVC, plan is to router just over a 1/2" x 3/8" rabbet edge into the PVC to mirrior some of the current tank manf designs. This should give more surface area for the silicone to stick.

I'm going to try the injection method with the silicone, using small zip ties to give me an equal gap when clamping the panels together. Still not sure how I will space the PVC and glass, but one idea was small dabs of silicone with zip ties beneath the glass, letting it cure, then pulling the zip ties, leaving the small silicone dabs place with the new silicone.

Once the silicone starts flowin, I will post pics.

Excited to build the tank, dreading building the wood stand.

 

[Yoimbrian]

strategic lie to the wife, eh? Risky play my friend - hope it works out

Look forward to seeing how much you lied...

 

[NathanKS]

If he is anything like me it’s really double the size he told her. So 960 gallons

 

[Aquadog]

After consideration and research, I decided to skip the PVC and go with the already tested, plywood/pond shield to ensure a good bond with the glass using the DC795. Not only is it tested, its much
cheaper.

So far, my stand frame has been built using 2x6's and 2x4s at the bottom to allow more space. There are (24) 2x6s providing vertical strength to the 2x6 frame at the top. 4 addition 2x4s help support the middle braces. A 3/4" plywood top. I wasn't going to put 2x6s at the sides, but extra support couldnt hurt.

For the tank, I'm going with a 1" thick outdoor plywood with the pond shield. I framed it up for fitment so I can check for precise fitment of the 2x2" 1/8" thick steel angle I am going to silicome to the base. I'm going to weld an (4) additional 2" wide 1/8" flat bar spaced between the 8' long side to give more support to keep the glass in place.

On paper, it didnt seem much bigger than my current 96" x 30" 300 gallon, but its much much larger!

 

[NathanKS]

Are you using corner clamps/jigs or something else?

 

[Aquadog]

This pic was just a mock up to check sizing of the glass on the plywood.

Im going to use the corner clamps on top and a bar clamp to hold the bottom of the sides tight. Going to use 1/16" spacers for the glass/glass sides and 1/8" for the bottom angle steel and silicone

 

[Aquadog]

Finished the Pond Armor on the plywood and steel frame. Sitting in silicone, clamped to the Pond Armor steel frame now. Overall, looking good. I chipped an edge of the plywood when resting it into the frame. I'm not too worried about it though. Once the plywood was seated, I was planning on doing one last layer of Pond Armor anyway to help seal the plywood edge to the steel.

If I were to do it again, I would have trimmed the plywood edge another 1/16 to 1/8" to account for the swelling of the wood and layers Pond Armor on the sides of the plywood and steel frame. I left an 1/8" gap around the edges thinking it would be enough to use tile spacers, but when done with the Pond Armor, gap was gone.

Currently has 3 layers, 1 thin, the layer of fiberglass with 2 thick layers on top of the fiberglass.

 

[Aquadog]

Question for the Pond Armor users. It's been over 24hrs since my last coat and the Pond Armor still seems soft and not has hard as regular epoxy. I can put a fingernail into the Pond Armor and scratch it. Curious if it will harden anymore.

All the mixed epoxy was mixed per the instructions, using alcohol to thin it.

 

[Freshwater4Life]

Question for the Pond Armor users. It's been over 24hrs since my last coat and the Pond Armor still seems soft and not has hard as regular epoxy. I can put a fingernail into the Pond Armor and scratch it. Curious if it will harden anymore.

All the mixed epoxy was mixed per the instructions, using alcohol to thin it.

Hmm. Yea 24 hours should be a full cure. I know you said you followed directions but maybe there wasn’t enough hardner added ? Just throwing out a guess. It’s not super hard to scratch pond shield but your fingernail definitely shouldn’t.

 

[Leebtattoos]

I agree with above post. But I've read other people had curing issues that they needed to wait longer than 24hrs. If you applied a really thick layer, that may be the case.