DIY acrylic tank

[wally43]

got a local guy that i can get acrylic sheets from he'll cut them exactly how i want so thats nice i've been planning this for a while now so figured i'd get ur input, its gunna be a mantis tank so 1/2" acrylic should do fine, dimensions are 20"x20"x20", a lil cube for her with prolly 5inch sand bed, getting 3 pieces at 20"x20" and 2 at 20"x19" for the sides, so its gunna be 20 1/2" tall but whatever, gunna use weld-on #16 since its a little thicker and this is my first time building a tank so should be easier to work with, so heres how its gunna go
put the bottom down glue the back on then the two sides on and last the front piece then let that sit for a couple minutes to harden good, then i'm getting 3 pieces at 3"x20" and i'll have to cut one down to fit but i'm gunna glue them on top for bracers along the sides and the front, so either i'm gunna just cut one down to 14" or was thinking about angling the bracers ya know what i mean so i would have to angle all the 3" pieces on the ends so they would go together perfect, just looking for some input on all this hope i'm getting everything but hope you'll help too
wally

[chrismunn]

i would try to get the top flange (3 pieces - 3x20) in one whole piece that covers all 4 sides. this is much more effective for bracing, although on a tank with those dinensions, and using 1/2" material you should be fine without the extra bracing. also, if you miter the corners of the top braces then its almost pointless to add them becasue your essentially making the joint for those braces line up with the joints on the vertical viewing panes. but it will help to prevent bowing. in the vertical panes.

i think most of the people framiliar with acrylic fabrication here will suggest that you use something like weld-on #4 instead of the #16.

[wally43]

the guy that i talked to said that #4 is more runny then #16 and since i havn't really worked with it at all that the #16 would be better for me to use since i'm a first timer, with the barcing like u said i shouldn't do the angles on them cuz it will go with the seam? is that right? so i should just cut one down to 3x14 and have the short one on the front? again this is my first tank build so i dont expect it to come out perfect as long as it holds water i'll be happy thanks ahead of time for the help
wally

[chrismunn]

yes, #4 is the same consistancy as water where as the #16 is viscouse like pancake syrup. from what ive read the #4 will give you a stronger bond than the #16 will, and being that your creating a vessle to hold water, your going to want to create the strongest bonds possible.

as far as that euro brace is concerned, i see it serving 2 purposes.

1. to keep the panes of acrylic from bowing outward while under pressure.

2. to help give each pane a little extra material to hold on to, to aid in preventing the vertical joints from splitting.

if your going to use #16 to glue the tank together with then you would probably want all the extra support you can get. this means overlapping the vertical joints with the top brace, and not lining up the miter joint in the top brace with the vertical joints. if you were going to use each piece of the top brace individually you would want to have the 20" pieces span the front and rear lenghts, and have the 14" pieces span the front to back length inbetween them.

but again, since its such a small tank and the acrylic is so thick, you may not even need the extra bracing?

[wally43]

ok thank you for all the help here, so i think i got everything down gunna order this week and put it together next week should be exciting i'll post pic when i get stuff in the mail thanks again for the help
wally

[chrismunn]

:thumbsup: