5gal DIY Acrylic Desk Tank

[fishyboy]

with a heat gun prob.

[Peterstaud]

where in wal mart did u get that lamp
Does it hold compact flouescents?

[hubbahubbahehe]

actually my guess is that you made the sides first and then you traced it over the acrylic cardboard and cut the base that way.

it looks like the acrylic side is one single piece of acrylic. it has been bent 3 times and then the two ends were "glued" together. I'd like to hear more about how you calculated the lengths for the sides to make the ends perfectly connected with each other... Thanks very much.

one more thing, what acrylic thickness is that?

[GulfCoastAquarian]

Ok, it's been a long weekend! Sorry I havent' gotten to your questions sooner!
First of all, thanks for the compliments. Makes a man proud, hehe.

1) Nino: I am definitely planning a bigger acrylic tank soon. I just need to get my hands on some better 1/4" acrylic. The stuff at Home Depot is only good enough for little tanks like this.

2) Hubba: One of my first DIY Acrylic tanks, I painted the back black with spray paint but for some reason it caused the acrylic to crack. For this one, I just used black posterboard.
Also, this is only 1/8" acrylic. I get a little bit of a bow on the back panel but not much.

3) Tony: Fishyboy is right - I bent the front panel with a Heat Gun. It's really not too hard at all.

First I laid the front panel flat on a workbench and marked off the front and side pane lengths. It was a 33" panel so I decided to use 13" for the width and 10" for each of the sides. I ran the heat along the marked line and then lifted the side pane with a flat piece of wood (naturally, to keep the side pane flat). I used a right angle to set the flat piece of wood perpendicular to the workbench and let it cool. Repeat for the other side.
Then I welded the front/sides bent piece to the bottom with Weldon 4. I lined up the rear edges but left the bottom piece 1/4" larger on the front and sides so I could clean off the edges afterwards with a router.
After that cured, I welded the assembly to the back pane. Once again, I left an overhang so I could clean the edges up with a flush-cut router bit.
I let it cure for a week before routering the edges and it came out pretty clean, even though I had to do a little bit of sanding/polishing on a few edges.

Buck: I've got four gorgeous Leopard Fancy Guppies in there with the Betta right now! He chases them around a bit, but never really catches them. They do keep him from sleeping around on the ground all day, though!

Peter: I got the lamp in the aisle where they keep all the desks and desk lamps and such. I got it a few years ago so they don't have this particular style any more but I was able to find a replacement bulb there for it just a few months ago so they still have similar styles with that 13 watt PL style 6500K bulb.

[Peterstaud]

thanks