What size of glass?

[Tarolisol]

If I want to orger glass for a tank 24x24x20 what size do i get the glass. I am going to silicone the tank myself. Is there a glass size calculator anywhere?

[marcingo]

I heard there is at garf.com.

By the way just wanted to let you know. I am in edmonton so I dont know about Calgary but here we have a place that basically takes glass from construction companies and other people as donations and then resells it. If you look through it all you can find basically brand new glass for very cheap.

For example here he charged me 1 dollar a sq ft for 3/16 inch plate glass.
Stuff isnt even scratched one bit.

Bargain if you ask me.

Just thought I might let you know

[kwirky]

here's a glass calculator I wrote
http://www.esopenko.com/phpexperiments/calculateglass/

6 mm on the sides. 9mm bottom.

if you're going to have any holes drilled close to any edges of the glass, then go with 9mm. or even better, don't drill any holes closer than 4" from the edge of the glass.

[Tarolisol]

here's a glass calculator I wrote
http://www.esopenko.com/phpexperiments/calculateglass/

6 mm on the sides. 9mm bottom.

if you're going to have any holes drilled close to any edges of the glass, then go with 9mm. or even better, don't drill any holes closer than 4" from the edge of the glass.
I dont plan of drilling any holes but would like to go bracless. So i think i would need to increase the glass width. Any ideas how much.

[marcingo]

Kwirky- Im just wondering your calculator says the glass thickness for my tank parameters should be 4.11 milimeters. I bought tempered glass that is 3/16 of an inch thick which is 4 millimeters do you think I should be safe or do I need to buy new glass. Tank parameters are 30 1/4 inch L by 9 inch H by 12 inch deep.

[kwirky]

the formula calculates the glass to a safety factor of 3.8 if you're using good quality new glass. A safety factor of 3.8 can withstand most accidents, such as jimmy throwing his 6" tonka truck at the tank, or dropping a 6 pound piece of liverock in the water. I'd go to the glass guild. they have top notch glass, and they can machine polish the edges giving you a beautiful tank. It's something like $2 per linear foot of polishing, but it's worth it. I wish I did for my 120 gallon.

I've been planning on and off for either an 18" or a 24" cube for a while now, and I'll probably go to them for the glass.

I dont plan of drilling any holes but would like to go bracless. So i think i would need to increase the glass width. Any ideas how much.

6mm SHOULD be fine braceless. The formula calculates it without any brace, and with your sides and front panels lieing ON the bottom piece. But, I'd say if you have the extra money, allways go with the next glass up. I bought 12mm for my tank when 10mm should have been fine. i'm glad I did. when it was a tanganyikan cichlid tank, I had 45 pound boulders in the tank lmao. I almost dropped one putting it in. that would have been HORRIBLE! it looked nice, but when I took them out, I decided to NEVER do something like THAT again :D

If you don't have the budget, 6mm should still be fine for the sides, and 9mm on the bottom. Make sure any rockwork is on egg crate or something to spread the load and prevent pressure points. and don't drop any 45 pound boulders on it ;)

Kwirky- Im just wondering your calculator says the glass thickness for my tank parameters should be 4.11 milimeters. I bought tempered glass that is 3/16 of an inch thick which is 4 millimeters do you think I should be safe or do I need to buy new glass. Tank parameters are 30 1/4 inch L by 9 inch H by 12 inch deep.

ha. 4mm of tempered glass is almost like 20mm of normal glass. it's more than enough :)

don't drill it though!!! lol do NOT drill it! it'll shatter the second the drill bit goes 1/2mm deep.

you can't cut it either. the way tempered glass is made, is you cut/polish/drill it exactly to order, THEN temper it. once it's tempered, it's a done deal. no changes.

oh, i'd be careful. I'm sure that place is selling OLD glass. contractors who remove a window, sell the windows to those places. you could be buying 20 year old glass. see, that glass is fine in a window, because it's not holding anything. and it's never been scratched because all it's been exposed to is wind and such. but the stress your water puts on it... filling an 18"x18"x18" tank made with 6mm glass, the glass will bend up to 2mm once the tank's filled. glass isn't like plastic. if it bends past a certain point, CRACK. and older glass can't bend as much as new glass before it cracks. One way to tell if glass is used is how green it is. The greener, the older. Try to buy less-green pieces if you really want to use older glass.

tempered glass is 5 times stronger than normal glass. you should be fine with the used tempered glass, if it's already cut to the sizes you need.

here's good information, and I based my program on this formula.
http://www.fnzas.org.nz/articles/technical/glassthickness/

[marcingo]

The glass I got was still in shrink wrap with the origional labels on it as if it was just extra's never used. But it seems to be a little bluer/maybe kind of green compared to the other plate glass. But then every single piece of tempered in there was kind bluer/green. Does this mean its all old or is it just the color tempered glass is?

[kwirky]

I wouldn't worry about the strength of tempered glass, even if it's old. If you only need 4mm of regular glass, and you have 4mm of tempered glass, it doesn't matter HOW old it is, that tempered glass is mighty strong :)

[marcingo]

thanks for the help.

[KrazyKuch]

Does anyone know were I can find a calcualtor for acrylic thicknesses for an aquarium

[kwirky]

there's a chart in there on thickness of acrylic depending on the height of the tank

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/diy_acrylic_aquarium.php

[Tarolisol]

Does anyone know were I can find a calcualtor for acrylic thicknesses for an aquarium

You can go to www.garf.org and click DIY on the left and then aquarium you can choose glass or acrylic


On a side note i recieved my glass from glass guild yesturday, 10mm, and built my tank today. Ill start a tank thread soon if anyone wants to watch progress.

[Der_Iron_Chef]

Sean, did you ever finish this? Did you do a build thread? I'm looking into getting a very similar sized tank (or possibly even trying to build it myself). How was everything from the Glass Guild?