as a general it does but ply wood tanks have an advantage because it can be 4' high but if the vieing window is 2' high then its only classed as a 2' high tank(plus a lil extra for safety). with tempered glass sometimes the strength is increased by 5 times sumtimes strength isnt increased, so by all means use tempered just dont really on it being stronger.
In Perth Australia most LFS (I know as I rang nearly all for quotes on this size) use 12mm for tanks up to 8x3x2.5 but it comes down to bracing. I even got a tank that was 10foot long in 12mm but it had 15mm base. Never ended up using it but it had been in use previously.
u can make 10' long tanks in 10mm. just that u dont make them more then 24x28 or 28x24 as the size of the endpanel. yes people make 8x3x2.5 out of 12mm but at that length even with extremebracing id use 15mm if it was 4' or under and you could do vertical bracing then it would be fine.
I'm getting a 4000mmX2000mm plywood tank which is 715mm in depth but I'm going to modify it to make it deeper. I was intending to go with 19mm float glass at about 12' long and 2.5' exposed for viewing or 3' viewing depth. I'm sure its adequate for 2.5' depth but not sure about pushing it to 3 foot. Bearing in mind total depth of tank will probably be close to 4 foot. Hope that makes sense.
P.S. just to clarify when I mean exposed I'm talking about the dimensions of exposed glass
Would i be corect to say that i could have a tank 18'L X 30" X 30" out of 12mm glass or would it be better to go for something thicker eg 15mm, would it be advisable to put in cross braces every 3 or 4 feet???
Would i be corect to say that i could have a tank 18'L X 30" X 30" out of 12mm glass or would it be better to go for something thicker eg 15mm, would it be advisable to put in cross braces every 3 or 4 feet???