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Old 01-18-2007, 07:04 AM
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justinl justinl is offline
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oh right the finish! I forgot that part. If you go with the acrylic Id suggest going through a plastics dealer. they're around, you just gotta look for them. You can order acrylic sheets cut to size and get the edges finished (as opposed to the rough "saw-cut" edges), just make sure you tell them that you're making an aquarium so the cuts have to be as near perfect as possible. You should be able to buy the weld-on solvent/glue (about 20$) from them as well.

But don' just go gluing randomly! search the net on how to do it properly and practice. The dealer should have a scrap bin where you can get pieces anywhere from cheap to free. the scraps will have rough edges so you'll need to smooth them out. I used the flat back edge of a knife, just run it along the glass edge so the smoothing is uniform.

also note that you can't just get any kind of plexiglass. You need to get cell-cast acrylic fot the tank. If your just making a refugium or something then it doesnt really matter.

I made a 60 gallon acrylic tank out of 3/8 thick acrylic and the five panes alone costed 250$.

Last edited by justinl; 01-18-2007 at 07:06 AM.
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