How thick of acrylic for sumps is needed?

[afboundguy]

I'm looking at pricing out buying some acrylic sheets to make a sump. How thick should it be? I thought I've always seen it as 3/16" thick.

On a side note if I get the acrylic to do a DIY sump would anyone in the surrounding areas (I live in Ipswich MA) be willing to let me use their expertise? I don't have any tools and I could supply pizza, booze all the various acutrimal

 

[JohnK]

The thickness depends on the size of the sump, number and location of baffles, and weather or not it's braced or eurobraced.

You probably want to look at 1/4" min. There is a thickness calculator somewhere on RC but I don't know where to find it.

I could probably offer some assistance in building it, but honestly I have only build one sump and I WAY overbuilt that to be safe (all 3/8" and 1/2" cell cast for a 30"x18"x17" with eurobracing). Acrylic is very unforgiving if you haven't had some practice with it first.

If you haven't already, check out http://www.melevsreef.com/allmysumps.html

 

[afboundguy]

I've been to that website many times, it's actually where I got the idea of taking out the center brace so I can fit a sump. He has a great page on it...

 

[JohnK]

Yea, everything on marc's site is really well done and super helpful. FWIW he's actually registered on this site and IME is happy to take questions and such. IIRC it's "marc levinson".

Here's another great thread from RC;
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=390652

 

[Arthur1]

1/4'' min, 3/8'' and up is obviously much better