Acrylic tanks

[MixedFruitBasket]

I am wondering how difficult it would be to build an acrylic tank.
First, I've never built one. Second I have no tools for acrylic so would have to have the sheets precut. My design however, is a simple extra large lagoon tank. 60 inches by 30 inches and about 14 inches (tall/deep). I fear what a company would quote me and since it's not really a big project would the be fair or a price that makes it worth their time to mess with. But if it's not logical to do with precut plexiglass then a company might be my only option.
I do have tools to drill with though and to smooth out edges and vises to hold things in place. I just don't have any kind of router or table type saw.

 

[andrewkw]

I built an acrylic tank with no experience at all. I had the sheets cut for me and did not route them. I did sand / scrape them. The tank lasted about 1 year before it developed a small leak. I would rate my DIY skill something like 4/10. I can cut wood, screw things together, build ikea furniture, rocket engineer tank stands ect but generally don't do any big projects.

I would suggest you build a nano or ato container or something else first, wait a very long year then if it's held up move to this larger project. When you actually go to put the weld-on in and fuse the panels it happens so fast and on a first try it can be tough to get a perfect finish. Mine ended up looking pretty decent but it just didn't hold. I probably could have used weld-on 16 to patch the tank but decided not to take the chance.

It's not impossible, but it's not that easy and for a first try this sized tank is pretty risky. Of course mine was plumbed into a 180 gallon tank so it was also risky. At the very least get a bunch of scraps to practice with.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

In terms of making a nice acrylic tank it is about 30% the type of acrylic, 30% clean edges and 40% patience and cleanliness.

I am a really handy guy and have built several large tanks...the last one was 8 foot by 2 x 2.

If the edges are clean and you take your time and have a couple tools...like right angle jigs, then you should be good to go.

Use ONLY acrylite GP cast acrylic. It is the easiest to weld and is very high quality.

It is actually pretty dang easy once you know how it works.

If your are serious about it, shoot me a PM and I'll give you my number and I can walk you through the process. Or wait a couple weeks, I may make a video of me making my next tank... 8 x 4x 30" :).

 

[328 reef]

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[its.jojo]

I build my own tanks from acrylic. In my opinion, you definitely need a router and a table saw to do the job correctly. The router is the only way to guarantee that the edges are prepped perfectly. The table saw is the only way to make sure your pieces are cut square. I get the plastics dealer to cut my pieces but they are usually out of square and need some machining to get corrected.