Building a 75g all glass tank

[MoonFish]

Wendle, wow bubbles drove me nuts too. I thought scolley's tank would leak when I saw all the bubbles in his picture. I did one that had bubbles and had to redo it about a year later.

[wendle]

Originally Posted by Hoppy

How do you handle the weight of a large tank like this? Just the thought of trying to move it without breaking it while gluing it together, cleaning up the excess glue, cleaning the outside, etc. just scares me.

you don't move it at all when you are assembling it. where you lay the base down is where the tank gets built and it doesn't move then untill the silicone has at least partially cured. they are very strong then, the only way to damage an empty tank is to drop it, or bang it against something hard. first thing i usually do when they are ready to move is stand them up on one end to pull all the newspaper off the bottom. most tank shapes take up a lot less room that way, and if you stand them up on a peice of carpet you can use that to drag them out of the way so you can start building the next one

[Hoppy]

Fascinating discussion! I'll bet a lot of new tanks are either being home built or people are seriously contemplating doing so as a result of this.

[Anti-Pjerrot]

Im putting my tank(s) up today - with some advice from both scottey and wendle.

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/di...o-plans-2.html

Im doing it the way wendle does, but im sticking with some masking, because i want slim silicone seams.

I got 4 mm glass - so the hole thing shouldent be a problem, since its fairly easy to work with... Only 2.1 gal

How long should i wait before testing for leaks?

[Big Bob]

Hello
How did you go about fiting the "bulk heads" in the bottom of your tank?
Thanx
Bob

[scolley]

Anti-Pjerrot - I'd say wait at least 48 hours after your last seam is made. That's if it is curing in at least 50% humidity. Otherwise, wait a just one day and then put some water in the bottom of the tank (1" or 2") to help raise the humidity in the tank. No firm answers here that I know (maybe someone else does???) but if the humidity is lower, you need to wait longer.

Bob Bob - for bulkheads just make sure you have non-tempered glass for the bottom (as with the sides), and have holes drilled by the glass cutters. You can do it yourself if you buy an expensive diamond glass bit and drill it. But I chose not to risk that.

Then you just go to any saltwater aquarium store (on-line!) and get a bulkhead kit. It will have all the plastic parts you need in a single kit to screw on a fitting that has attachments on the inside and outside. The decision you have to make before you buy the kit is do you want slip or threaded fittings - making that decision for both inside and outside. I got threaded for both myself.

[Sietch31]

Hi all !

I glued yesterday evening my big tang, following Scolley's and Wendle's advices !

The tank is 136x59x57 (cm) or for you american friends 53x23x22"
Glass thickness 12.5mm (1/2 inch)
Polished and beveled edges.
No braces (at least until I fill it and measure deflection of front and back panels.....will see)

Following Scolley's advice I used a LOT of acetone to clean...
Following my own wish to make final cleaning more difficult I didn't mask anything...
Following Wendle's advice, the bottom panel is inside the front/back/sides panels.
I smoothened the bottom seals with wet finger.
I made the vertical seams very small with a credit card (expired )
I used 3 silicone tubes of 310 ml (I had bought 8, just in case... )
All in all, the process took less than 45 minutes...
It seemed to me very easy to do it like that ( it was my first DIY tank).

I will post pictures as soon as I get my DSL connection back
I will update on watertightness after 3 or 4 weeks as I am going on leave, I guess silicone will have enough time to cure

Thank you all for sharing your experiences, that helped me a lot....

Now the adventure begins !

Sietch

[scolley]

Originally Posted by Sietch31

I made the vertical seams very small with a credit card (expired )

Hey, now that's a good idea!

Let us know if it hold water. And good luck!

[Sietch31]

Originally Posted by scolley

Let us know if it hold water. And good luck!

Well, it does

And for one week now !

Pictures can be seen here:
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/di...less-122g.html

Some more details:

The tank is 136x59.5x57 (cm) or for you american friends 53x23x22"
Glass thickness 12mm (1/2 inch)
Polished and beveled edges.

Deflection:
After filling, measured deflection (using same method as Scolley with a ruller sitting on the top edges but longer the the width of tank ) at the top centre is 5mm total, i.e. 2.5mm per panel (front & back)
According to StGobain website and calculation page (I can post link but it's all in french an full of mathematics formulas ) it is acceptable.

Silicone:
I bought it from a aquarium specialized french web-store (www.europeen-trading.com), as only standard grade was available in the UAE.
It is silicone for gluing aquarium, brand is Soudal, name Silirub AQ.
Here i the link to their website (I think it is a belgian company):
http://www.soudal.com/soudal.asp?o=C...id=1068&lan=EN
You can download a datasheet from there. The technical datas are very close to the GE silicone used by Scolley.
Price was 4.30 Euros (5.40 US$) per cartridge including shipping (to France not to UAE...)

Something I did not mention in my previous post is that, following Wendle's advice, I was extremely carefull for not letting the silicone cartridge nozzle touch the glass while laying the silicone "worm" on it. I cut it wide, as adviced by Wendle, and most probably the more difficult is to hold the tip at constan height above glass while going forward and applying pressure to the gun to get a constant flow...
I was getting better at this while doing the last panel

I used one cartridge for gluing the sides first. It was not empty then but I started to lay silicone on the front panel with a new cartridge to avoid laying the silicone worm with a "cut" in the middle.
I did the same for the back, so I used 2 and 1/2 cartriges.

Here is the picture of tank just after finishing the assembly process:


Hope this will help....
I will be happy to answer any question if you need some more details !

Once again thank you all for all the advices and tips !
Without that, and without Scolley incredible multiple threads describing with all possible details his heroic adventure, I would never have imagine I was able to try that and even better to achieve it at my first try !!!!

But with this incredible amount of shared information there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to do it !

Merci Monsieur Scolley and Merci to everybody who contributed to the adventure !

Sietch

[scolley]

Il a été mon plaisir, et félicitations sur votre succès Monsieur Sietch.


I think it is great that between this success, and Wendle's contributions, we are assembling a nice little body of knowledge that other people can learn from - and act upon.

OK folks. I did it. Seitch did it. Wendle's done it. Your turn.

[nawiatren]

Thank you all for sharing your knowledge here. I am planning to build a tank with the dimensions 24" x 18" x 17" (height). Will 6mm glass be sufficient to build the tank without bracing. Please give me some advise. Thank you.

[scolley]

Check the table in the technical document my reference sources in the first post. The answer to that, and most, thickness question is found there. If you can't understand the document - but after you have tried - PM me and I'd be glad to help.

But look at the thickness tables at the end of the document first OK?

[nawiatren]

Originally Posted by scolley

Check the table in the technical document my reference sources in the first post. The answer to that, and most, thickness question is found there. If you can't understand the document - but after you have tried - PM me and I'd be glad to help.

But look at the thickness tables at the end of the document first OK?

Thank you so much. very helpful.

[wendle]

Originally Posted by nawiatren

Thank you all for sharing your knowledge here. I am planning to build a tank with the dimensions 24" x 18" x 17" (height). Will 6mm glass be sufficient to build the tank without bracing. Please give me some advise. Thank you.

hi,
6mm is right on the borderline for your unbraced 24" x 17" face. I would build one for myself with 6mm, but not for a customer
I used to be able to get 8mm, which was nice to work with and worked well for this kind of sized tank, unfortunately it is not as common anymore, and you might want to step up to 10mm.

[Badcopnofishtank]

Love the info Scolley and Wendle.
I will be replacing a pane from my 240 gallon tank this fall and this info is helpful.

I wonder if I could do away with the plastic molding on the top and bottom edges if I make some braces along the top a la ADA style?
I am considering the low iron glass for this to. How much more was it for you?