36"x40"x24" tank build questions

[Cjtabares]

I am trying to figure out how much and if I want to try and build my own tank. I was thinking of going with a tank that is 36"x40"x24" tank with a false wall overflow.

I was thinking having about 3" between the false wall overflow and the back glass. Would this be enough room to have a "bean" style drain?

Any other tips or comments would be great thanks.

Here is a quick sketchup of what i was thinking:

 

[JohnK]

The nut and flange on a 1"bulkhead are 2.5" wide.

You will need a little wiggle room for silicone seams. You might need to go a little more than 3", but not a lot more.

 

[Cjtabares]

Anyone have any suggestions on how I would get the overflow in?

Could i silicon one of the sides then silicon the front glass, the over flow and the back glass then last silicon the other side glass in?

 

[Joel A]

i explored the idea of a false wall too... you'll likely have to install supports for it.. which makes it a real PITA and likely not worth doing, but that's just my opinion.

Marc Levenson has some detailed pictures on his site showing how he used supports to hold up the false wall..

 

[Cjtabares]

i explored the idea of a false wall too... you'll likely have to install supports for it.. which makes it a real PITA and likely not worth doing, but that's just my opinion.

Marc Levenson has some detailed pictures on his site showing how he used supports to hold up the false wall..

melevsreef.com or reefaddicts.com?

Do you think silicon would support a false acrylic wall? If not would silicon support a glass false wall?

 

[Joel A]

Melevesreef.com is what i was referring too.. it's buried in there someplace..

glass false wall yes, acrylic.. well it depends... when i was considering it i was going to just support the whole acrylic false wall with a sheet of glass behind it that just didn't come up quite as high as the rest of the tank.. so if you're tank is 24" high, picture a piece of glass behind the false wall acrylic overflow that is say 20" high, and then the acrylic is the full 24" height with teeth cut into it.. that way you don't have to cut the teeth into the glass...

that way is definitely more expensive though. I liked the idea of it, but then had a few people tell me that it would probably need strong bracing to work on a larger tank, so i threw the idea out because i didn't want to over complicate things...

but if you can pull it off, the more power to you! It really is a cool look... Steve (smcnally on the forums) had a tank with a false wall overflow.. it seemed to work really well.. but it was only on a small 40 gallon cube or something like that IIRC.

 

[Cjtabares]

Thanks Joel I will have to look into it more

 

[JohnK]

If you do want to do an acrylic wall in a glass tank, I would definately build the tank, then add the overflow after the fact.

I agree that it would need bracing, but I don't think that would be a big deal at all. It would just need a couple of braces so that the acrylic would not flex a lot, because the flexing would strain the glass/silicone/acryilic joint. You would just build the divider wall like this; ___l___l___ With the lines pointing up being braces that would rest against the back glass of the tank, and the __ lines being the flase wall.

It would really be quite easy IMO.

 

[Joel A]

If you do want to do an acrylic wall in a glass tank, I would definately build the tank, then add the overflow after the fact.

I agree that it would need bracing, but I don't think that would be a big deal at all. It would just need a couple of braces so that the acrylic would not flex a lot, because the flexing would strain the glass/silicone/acryilic joint. You would just build the divider wall like this; ___l___l___ With the lines pointing up being braces that would rest against the back glass of the tank, and the __ lines being the flase wall.

It would really be quite easy IMO.

that's the same style bracing that Marc Levenson used as well.. just little plastic or acrylic "ribs" if you will.. i think he installed four of them, but that was on a smaller tank too.

 

[dcforester1]

If you go to TI they sell SeaClear tanks and thats how they are built. They are all acrylic, but you get the same idea.

 

[Cjtabares]

I think I am going to euro-brace the tank. I was looking around the web for a resource on how to do it, but cant find much of anything. Anyone know of any, or could explain to me how it is done.

Thanks