Dryn

I've kinda gotten tired of my "Fishroom" apartment with its half dozen different tanks, and I'm going to limit myself to two tanks. One will be my terrarium housing my poison dart frog, and the other will be a planted aquarium. I have several tanks, but I want a tank with deeper dimensions. I have decided that I want a cube-shaped tank. I have the money to buy one from ADA or all-glass cages.com, but I like doing things myself and I'm going to try to build one myself.

I want the tank to be 24"x24"x18." I have a power-compact lighting system that I built myself for a ten gallon tank, so I want to use it for this tank, hence the 24" dimension. I've used the garf calculator to determine the thickness as 1/4," and the gallon size as 40-sum. I can get the glass from a couple of places, but I may just order it from all-glass cages and silicone it up myself as the local fish store carries caulking tubes of aquarium silicone.

I have a few questions. First, should the bottom glass be "floating" between the side panes as recommended by garf, or should the bottom glass be under the side panes? Second, can I use corner clamps sold at the home depot for gluing up cabinet corners? Third, has anyone ordered cut glass from all-glass cages.com?

Thanks for any input you can offer, and when I start, I'll take plenty of pictures.

Squawkbert

Check around for "40g Breeder" tanks - I think they're a good match for your proposed dimensions, right off the shelf.

mulita

I would reccommend you having the bottom glass under the sides pannels.

I would also recommend you to have ground edges all the way around or minimum in every side that glass will do a joint as this reduces change for leakage. Yours is going to be a cube but anyway try to have both "sides" glue to front and back of the aquarium.

You can do your assembly using only duct tape, however for 1/4" thinckness I recommend you to use clamps for the walls, IMHO is better to use the straight press clamp than just the corner type, the reason is because you want to maximize contact area within the joint section. you must use at least 2 clamps per side (4 in total for the assembly) if you additionally add duct tape better. Don't be affraid of doing a good clamp, it will actually be better as you wont have any leaks. Having the bottom under the sides will itself do a good press to assure a good joint without leakage.

You can also get a good Glass and aluminum grade silicon at Home depot.

Dryn

Thanks mulita, that was what I was thinking...

Ravenous

Hey Dryn, I am getting ready to do this as well. How does ADA do the bottom glass? I would be concerned about somebody cutting the glass to the exacting specs we need. I've been looking into the scribe and break method, the jury is out on if it will work good on 1/4 inch glass. Some say yes and some say no, but I plan on trying anyway. One of the best things about the ADA tanks is the apparent lack of silicon. I don't know if they just use a smaller bead or a masking method of some sort. I was thinking that you could mask 1/4 inch from the corner with the tape and on the joining pane mask right to the edge. When the silicon sets, pull up the tape and run a razor down the backside of the tape right into the corner so then you'll have a clean corner. The downside is that the silicon would have to be perfectly gap free in the corners to keep from leaking. When I was at joann crafts with my girlfriend the other day I saw that they had carbide sanding blocks, these would be good for grinding the edge of the glass. I look forward to seeing the progress you make on this.

coseal

you should call some local glass shops and get some qoutes! machine edge is the way to go...is this going to be braceless? the glass cages glass will be seamed by hand ,and still have a wavy look to the edges.


this is a bad pic, but gives you an idea what to expect from hand seamed edges. good luck and check into ge sc series silicone or rtv108. look for an adhesive rather than a sealant if that make sense.

mulita

I agree, I did the same. this is more important if this is going to be 1/4" thicknes or over as hand grind only work good for thiner glass. They will charge you per yard but it will be worthy at all.

Dryn

I'm having my glass cutting done by the glass company. They are charging me $3 per square foot, and not charging for finishing the edges, but I have connections.