794 gallon ply tank build

[greenterra]

Thankyou everyone for all the great comments.

Fantastic work! That looks great.

I might add that it looks a lot like the one I burned (only bigger/more solid) where did you come up with the design?

Do you have any pics of the one you had? Post them if you do. It would be good to see.

I have been pondering the idea for quite sometime but at first it was with designs using external frames.
You may remember this idea. This is 1100+gal. 10'x 4'x 4''. Nice and solid but nice and expensive too.



Then I thought about using glass tanks on a stand design. These would all use the lowest tank as the sump/filter and make use of tanks I already have. I abandoned this as I still have heating issues and several smaller tanks. Not really what I am trying to achieve.



I went back to my original idea but wanted to get rid of all the external bracing so it was obvious to reduce the size a bit and fiberglass it for strength.This is what I came up with but this was for 19mm ply.It's about 650g.



The build I have done now is done in thicker ply so I went 100mm higher and the sheets were 2700 instead of 2400 giving me an extra foot in length. Pretty much the same as my design above but the dimensions changed a little taking me to nearly 800g.

 

[mr.reef24]

that is a great design what program did you use to draw up the sketch?

mr.reef24

 

[greenterra]

Google sketchup. It's pretty good once you get to know it and free.

 

[Pharaoh]

Looks fantastic. One of these days, I'll build a tank just for the experience.

 

[Eric A]

Google sketchup. It's pretty good once you get to know it and free.

Hell yeah, very good program, done some good drawings while it's been in my possesion.

 

[leg89]

you felt like only ply with fiberglass wouldn't be strong enough for 10' x 4' x 4' ?

how can we judge what are the "max sizes" we can build accordingly to the technique used?

 

[greenterra]

you felt like only ply with fiberglass wouldn't be strong enough for 10' x 4' x 4' ?

how can we judge what are the "max sizes" we can build accordingly to the technique used?

10' in length would require a joint in the ply on the back, bottom and front.. Most sheets are only 8' long. Hence the need for external bracing. By staying within the sheets size, I eliminate these joins and a potential weak point. The largest sheet I can find here is 9' x 4'. I guess to answer your question, sheet size is the determining factor for size.

 

[mr.reef24]

Google sketchup. It's pretty good once you get to know it and free.

thanks

mr.reef24

 

[Dragon]

awesome build dude. I'm so jealous

 

[TinFoilHat]

How much does that baby weigh???