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One time... just one time I went with acrylic because I designed a 2-tank setup (185g each) flanking three stairs leading to my sunken living room. I wanted circular ends, and that's not an easy do with glass. Cleaning the sides was torture and my heart broke with every scratch.
Never again.
fwiw, the community, as a whole, doesn't progress when people don't take risks by trying something new, and, we certainly don't learn anything if said "chance takers" don't share their methods and results.
Now this takes me back in time..... looks like how I started off my house build! Good on ya.Oh no…This thread was featured in an R2R email the other day. I better not screw this up…
I ended the las post by saying I ordered all the materials for the build and loaded up my car (my wife’s car) with a bunch of wood for the build.
But based on the replies to the first post I think it’d be a good idea to back up a bit and talk about some of my early decisions about the build.
I wanted at least a 30” viewable area and most of the threads I read on-line said ¾” plywood was good to about 36” water height, so I settled on a 35” water height just to play it a little safe. The sketch-up design was originally based on using a 39” glass panel, 1.5” of overlap on the window frame, but when I went to get quotes for glass, glasscages was all out of low iron glass (and wasn’t very helpful about identifying when they might get more in, just FYI) and all of the local glass shops wanted $4000+ for the dimensions I was looking for (37x39, 96x39, ¾” LIG). Combined with the other materials cost, that would have put the project around $5000 at which point I might as well have just built an acrylic tank, or bought one online. But since I had already decided I was going to do a plywood tank I contacted the local Acrylics Wholesaler (Piedmont Plastics, they’re a national distributor, very easy to work with and have great prices!). Their price on the panels I needed was $2100 (because I had to buy full sheets, so I had half a sheet I didn’t need, oh well, it was still half the price of glass). Before I pulled the trigger on the order I searched around to find out the best way to glue an acrylic window into a plywood tank. The results are a mix of Dowsil 795 and 3M 5200, so I thought, great, this will work!
I ordered:
Acrylic panels: front window, 1.5” acrylic, side window 1.25” acrylic - $2100
TotalBoat High Performance Epoxy: $200
¾” Baltic Birch Marine Grade Plywood: $500
4oz Fiberglass Mat: $100
3 quarts of black pond shield: $200
12 tubes of black 3M 5200: $240
5lbs 2.5” deck Screws: $25
5lbs 4” deck Screws: $25
5lbs 1.25” deck screws: $25
Flat black exterior enamel paint (For the outside of the tank): $25
JB Weld wood filler epoxy: $50
Various 2x4's, 2x6's, 4x4 posts: $200
6 tubes of Loctite PL Premium Construction Adhesive: $32
The water-proofing method I chose was not to just use straight pond armor like so many other plywood builds. There are a number of threads, you can look for them, that call into question the long term durability of pond armor and I wanted to be sure this wasn’t ever going to leak (LOL!) so I built it like a canoe and watched a bunch of videos on youtube about “how to fiberglass you boat” it was actually pretty easy once I got it all going, and satisfying. The key to fiberglassing though is air bubble removal. If you decide to fiberglass a tank, definitely invest in some quality fiberglass rollers, otherwise you’ll get air bubbles that will pop eventually. Now, the pond armor instructions do say to line all your seams with chopped matt (This is not a structural mat, but it’s easier to get bubbles out of it) but pond armor in most cases is colored, so you’re never really sure if you got the bubbles out. This is why I basically just chose to use it for “color”…because I was making 100% sure this thing never leaked.
All of the supplies arrived and I stacked everything up nicely in the garage before I made my cuts. Just look at that beautiful pile of "almost" tank!!
I busted out the miter saw, made all my cuts and assembled the body of the tank.
Everything was screwed and glued, because I was making sure it was a tank (a tank tank)! And it wasn't going to be my problem to break down if I ever moved, so why not!! (This is called foreshadowing..)
Just look at that beautiful frame! It's just like I designed it! And this is where I thought I was going to get really smart. Moving this thing around was already turning into a giant pain in the ***, so I figured, why flip it over to put the bottom on when I can just put it on the top!!! So I laid down the bottom plywood, happily gluing and screwing it down...
And then to my horror realized that if I flipped it over, the window was going to be on the wrong messing side. I'm sure everyone has been here, where you feel your heart start beating out of your chest because of the colossal idiotic "smart" mistake you made? Or maybe that just happens to me. So, because I idiotically glued and screwed it in already, taking it off was going to be a giant mess, and, I was home alone with no help to safely get that 150lb sheet of 1" plywood off the bottom, so, I busted out the crowbar and frantically tried to put the window on the right side of the tank.
Success!!
I finished laying down the rest of the decking and decided to call it a night, because I had made enough mistakes for one day, and I wanted to save the other mistakes for later.
I'm sure you're thinking, "Man, this guy is an idiot." Don't worry. It gets better.
I mean a man has to get his priorities right every now and again. Haven’t mentioned to her yet the fact that I’m already scoping the glass from the guy who supplied my glazing.....which I’ve just finished installing. She wants a move date and I’ve moved onto my tank build.... oops.
I’ve made a few mistakes myself. Who doesn’t. It’s what we learn from them that’s important. I had a 150g tank burst on me when my wooden frame it was on didn’t quite come up to muster ...... a good few years after installation. It was fairly heavily populated. Nightmare. Oh and I also had bursts on my concrete passive build ..... only a couple when I first started out and wouldn’t want to repeat that either. What a mess.Yes, priorities are important, and a couple of you have already hinted at one of the key lessons here. Glass is easiest for a plywood build, but I'll also give some tips for being successful with Acrylic! Just because I wasn't successful doesn't mean others can't be, just learn from my mistakes!