also here is the link to greenterras build full design and spec
http://www.brentsmith-photography.com/800-gallon-plywood-and-fiberglass-build
http://www.brentsmith-photography.com/800-gallon-plywood-and-fiberglass-build
10ft x 4ft x 4ft plywood aquarium glass thickness?
- Thread starter whitetip
- Start date
The window would most likely be 8ft x 3ft to leave room for the framing. Thank you so much for the info Mayo and others, I nearly fainted when I was told $7000 lol :0
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Viewing windows are usually always a foot or 2 short of the actual tank length/height in plywood builds, from what i've seen anyway. You need an edge to silicone the glass too and hold the pressure behind it.
Thanks for the link aswell, was a little too lazy to dig it up haha. I love Brents build. His Jack would have to be putting that 4' footprint to good use now.
If you have the window starting about 20-30cm above the bottom of the tank you could get away with 19mm, but if you want the window almost full height I'd go thicker, or look at toughened.
I was thinking of maybe going 25mm anyway, just to be on the safer side of things lol
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my tank is 8,2x4,1x2,6 and I used 15mm tempered glass and thats overkill.. no need to go 25mm
I would go with 19mm if I was you
I would go with 19mm if I was you
15mm tempered and 19mm regular float glass are two very different things. 15mm tempered glass has a tensile strength roughly five times that over regular, so is considerably stronger than 25mm or 19mm float.
Based on the standard calculations for a regular glass aquarium, a 10x4x4' tank would need 25mm glass to achieve a safety factor of 2.0, though with a ply/timber build your window will be a bit smaller, the main consideration is still the height. Based on a window 260cm long and with the bottom of the glass 110cm below the surface of the water you are only going to have a safety factor of 1.5 (again using the calculations for an all-glass aquarium, not an exact science but a good indicator of the strength of the glass panel).
If you're going with toughened/tempered glass, then I agree 25mm would be very overkill (15mm tempered would probably be fine), but for just regular float glass anything less than 25mm doesn't give you much margin for error, IMO.
Based on the standard calculations for a regular glass aquarium, a 10x4x4' tank would need 25mm glass to achieve a safety factor of 2.0, though with a ply/timber build your window will be a bit smaller, the main consideration is still the height. Based on a window 260cm long and with the bottom of the glass 110cm below the surface of the water you are only going to have a safety factor of 1.5 (again using the calculations for an all-glass aquarium, not an exact science but a good indicator of the strength of the glass panel).
If you're going with toughened/tempered glass, then I agree 25mm would be very overkill (15mm tempered would probably be fine), but for just regular float glass anything less than 25mm doesn't give you much margin for error, IMO.
How much of an overlap would you say I'd need if I were to make it 8ft x 4ft x 4ft with a viewing window frame of 6ft x 3ft and the water sitting half a foot above the top of the viewing window frame and what size glass would I be looking at then? I was thinking a half foot overlap past the edge of the viewing frame would be ok, what do you guys think?
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19mm will be fine for the 6x3 window, but even in deciding in the glass thickness i also recommend taking into account what fish u plan to stock with..... u may have 19mm glass but if u have a 1 metre long RTC that decides he wants to headbutt the window u never know what will happen... believe me i had bruised ribs just from moving the big boy lol
