Single piece glass aquarium

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Socast

Feeder Fish
Nov 22, 2015
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Good evening everyone,

I'm looking to build myself a custom aquarium. But I'm unsure on the thickness of glass I'll need.
So the tank dimensions I'm thinking are going to be:

84 inches tall
40 inches wide
20 inches deep

The idea is to build the tank in the alcove at the side of the fireplace using the 3 walls and a single sheet of glass for the front. Raised off the floor by a few feet and accessed from the room above.

Pretty much all calculators I've come across don't like a height more than 3ft and while the dimensions of the tank I want to build aren't exactly monstrous I don't want to over/underestimate the thickness of glass.

Any pointers on filtration would be handy too as I'm guessing a couple of fluval fx5's won't be sufficient.
 
Glass that tall is going to be under huge pressure down near the base....you will need really thick glass and major bracing.
A 7ft water column is no joke...I would recommend acrylic.
 
Socast said:
Pretty much all calculators I've come across don't like a height more than 3ft and while the dimensions of the tank I want to build aren't exactly monstrous I don't want to over/underestimate the thickness of glass.
Click to expand...

I've lost the link (seems dead) to the Federation of New Zealand Aquatic Societies page that had a great glass thickness calculator, (it even gave deflection), but the one below still works and will answer how thick it needs to be.

http://www.theaquatools.com/building-your-aquarium

Having said that, it says 39mm which I think is probably accurate. That will be highly expensive glass, however I think the biggest issue will be finding a source that can create 39mm glass.
 
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39mm / 25.4(mm/in)= 1.535" :confused::eek:
(for those of us whom are still metricly challenged)

Thats some thick glass!

Go Acrylic
 
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Thanks for all the replies guys, wasn't thinking I would need 40mm thick glass haha. That's gonna weigh a bit when it comes to wrangling it into place.
I'll have to take a look at some glass suppliers and see what kind of quotes I get.
Dependant on prices I may have to go with acrylic, would it be possible to put a relatively thin piece of glass on the inside of the tank sandwiched up against the acrylic to prevent scratching on the inside ?
 
http://acrylictankmanufacturing.com/
I would give these guys a call...they build stuff like what you want to do and could probably be helpful.

Socast said:
Thanks for all the replies guys, wasn't thinking I would need 40mm thick glass haha. That's gonna weigh a bit when it comes to wrangling it into place.
I'll have to take a look at some glass suppliers and see what kind of quotes I get.
Dependant on prices I may have to go with acrylic, would it be possible to put a relatively thin piece of glass on the inside of the tank sandwiched up against the acrylic to prevent scratching on the inside ?
Click to expand...

You would need to laminate the glass to the acrylic or else debris would get between the two...
 
Socast said:
Thanks for all the replies guys, wasn't thinking I would need 40mm thick glass haha. That's gonna weigh a bit when it comes to wrangling it into place.
I'll have to take a look at some glass suppliers and see what kind of quotes I get.
Dependant on prices I may have to go with acrylic, would it be possible to put a relatively thin piece of glass on the inside of the tank sandwiched up against the acrylic to prevent scratching on the inside ?
Click to expand...

I really wouldn't worry about scratching.. Just get a magnetic algae scraper that is safe for acrylic and be careful when placing stuff in the tank. Small scratches on acrylic are almost invisible when th e tank is full.

I'd be more worried about doing maintenance on a tank like that. 84 inches tall, but only 20 inches wide? What if there's something on the bottom of the tank (like a large dead fish) that you need to get out? Cleaning the bottom of the tank (even if it's a bare bottom) is going to be a huge pain.
Maybe you are skinny enough now to fit in a tank like that, but it would be a bear to bend over (if that's even possible) .. And if you are skinny enough now, you might not be in 5-10 years ...
I think a tank that tall would probably have to be at least 36" deep, just for maintenance reasons.
 
If you do a search in the forum, someone has built a big tank similar to your design. It held water for a while until one day and the water pressure blew out the front glass. There is safety issue with built in big tank and I don’t know whether your home owner insurance will cover flooding accident from DIY tank. Large public aquariums are always built big tanks with acrylic, never glass.
 
A cylinder tank might be better suited for that depth having no seams.

That depth is perfectly doable.. my DIY wood and acrylic tank holds at 6ft deep with no issues. Its at 4.5 feet now though only because my background was only that high and I didn't want to buy another $700 panel to cover just a foot or so.
 
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