will this work?
- Thread starter Defeatist
- Start date
hmm.. well black ghost knives are pretty cool. you should get them if your looking for the amazonian type.
A couple of points were already mentioned (glass height, bracing). There's two more that I thought you should consider. Both can be worked through, but you need to keep them in mind:
1) Your bottom piece isn't 21" high like the front and side panels. It's 48" x 13" approx. It's going to look a bit odd with one side having two panels the same height, and the second side having one panel that's narrower.
2) The bottom piece of glass is typically tempered glass in 55g aquariums. This means that it'll be stronger than the other pieces and probably able to withstand the water pressure up to a greater depth, but if it fails it's going to fail catastrophically. Be particularly careful near the edges. If you hit the edge of tempered glass just right, even with very light force, the entire piece will break apart.
1) Your bottom piece isn't 21" high like the front and side panels. It's 48" x 13" approx. It's going to look a bit odd with one side having two panels the same height, and the second side having one panel that's narrower.
2) The bottom piece of glass is typically tempered glass in 55g aquariums. This means that it'll be stronger than the other pieces and probably able to withstand the water pressure up to a greater depth, but if it fails it's going to fail catastrophically. Be particularly careful near the edges. If you hit the edge of tempered glass just right, even with very light force, the entire piece will break apart.
yeah i didn't realize size diff till after my sketch- and that whole tank is tempered. when it busted, it exploded. sounded likea gun went off and there's small pcs of glass everywhere. hundreds of pcs. i was like wtf! but i may put this build on hold. just depends. i just picked up a 130g acrylic tank yesterday. it has ALOT of scuffs so im going to work on getting those out. actually @tm im waiting on a dude to come help me get it into my den and ima fill it with water to see how bad the scuffs look when filled.
providing you use quality plywood at 5/8" or greater and you keep to the 21" height no additional bracing is needed. glue the seams (I use liquidnails) and screw the plywood together (use drywall or similar length screws and dip the tips of them in the liquid nails before screwing them in)
the pressure will be no greater in this build than it is in your 55g (which is entirely held together by silicone)
also if you use epoxy to seal the tank that will add to the strength.
alot of people over build because they didn't look at the footnotes on some of the earlier examples such as housing style framed tanks where the person spent less on thinner plywood and more on 2x4's that are dirt cheap. It's a tradeoff. you need one or the other, not both lol.
take a look at Isaaks builds and you'll see that thicker higher quality plywood needs little to no bracing.
the pressure will be no greater in this build than it is in your 55g (which is entirely held together by silicone)
also if you use epoxy to seal the tank that will add to the strength.
alot of people over build because they didn't look at the footnotes on some of the earlier examples such as housing style framed tanks where the person spent less on thinner plywood and more on 2x4's that are dirt cheap. It's a tradeoff. you need one or the other, not both lol.
take a look at Isaaks builds and you'll see that thicker higher quality plywood needs little to no bracing.
