Diy Tank, Acrylic Thickness

[Shred]

Hi all.

I've been looking at making a few DIY tanks, and after a bit of research it seems easy enough. The reason I want to make it DIY is because I need it quite an irregular shape - shallow and uh, deep, for lack of a better word. (880mmL x 330mmW x 300mmH, to be precise.)

Anyway I've got a quote for the pieces from an acrylic website, at 4mm thick its gunna cost about £62. But will I need the acrylic thicker than that?

I'm also getting a quote for glass tomorrow, and the guy I spoke to said I will need the glass to be 6mm thick, is this right?

 

[OldMan47]

At only a foot tall, the tank is not going to experience much water pressure but at about 3 feet long it will bow out unless you have some kind of top brace to hold the front and back vertical. Various methods are used to provide that kind of brace but two of the simplest are a brace running from front to back or a wide top in a "European brace" that reinforces the full length of the front and back by making them act as if they are several inches thick by placing the brace at right angles to the front itself.

 

[Shred]

Thanks for the reply.

I'm struggling to find any info on a "european brace" so I dont know what that is. Would I need to have extra pieces of glass going length-ways to hold the brace, or can I just have it siliconed into the inside of the tank?

Also do you have any idea on the thickness of the glass/acrylic required?

 

[OldMan47]

If you have a look at the commercially made acrylic tanks, you will see one on almost every tank out there. It looks almost as if the tank was made with all 6 sides solid and then a tool was used to cut a hole in the top piece, leaving a nice wide rim all the way around the tank to brace it without the obstruction of a cross brace in the middle. It is called a European brace in the US because we almost never use that style here and lots of European manufactured tanks seem to have them. That is especially true of acrylic tanks. A look at a Fluval Edge tank at the LFS will give you the general idea but in my opinion that tank took it way too far.