Acrylic fabrication questions? I can help!

Quite honestly, anyone who would send a tank that looks like that to a customer does not deserve your politeness. They should not be in business. Period. Be nice enough to get your money back if that's what it takes. But then call them out so no one else gets ripped off.

...and that's me putting it nicely. Really.
 
I have a question. First of all, here's a picture of the tank.

IMAG0214.jpg


The tank is a peninsula tank. On one short end a piece of blue plastic is glued inside the tank. The plastic is the same size of the tank and glued/solvent on the top and bottom, across the width. It's not joined in the middle so you can see some bowing. The 3d backgroup is siliconed on. Please disregard the painter's tape it's for me to measure for water changes. The tank has drains and returns on the bottom.

Now my question is can the blue plastic be removed and how. I would like to completely remove the background, seal the drains on the bottom and install a Reefsavvy's Ghost type of overflow on top.
 
The only way to make this look pretty is to break of the plastic where it is not attached to the tank, and then sand through all the plastic until it's gone.

That being said, the blue plastic might not be very well bonded to the acrylic - it depends on the solvent they used. It might just snap off leaving some residue. If they used WO16 this would be the case. so you can cut it in the middle maybe with a dremel and then try to pull up on it and see if it just breaks free. You would have to pull *really* hard to break the acrylic, I doubt this will happen, but don't try a crowbar or anything - if you need something like that, it's hard bonded and you're going to have to sand.

If you are able to break it free, then you will need to wet sand off the residue solvent and polish the affected area.
 
Looking pretty is not the main concern since coraline algae will grow over it eventually. But I need to have the surface smooth enough to have a good seal for bulkheads. Plus the inside of the tank is hard to work with since it's not tall enough for me to get in.
 
Quite honestly, anyone who would send a tank that looks like that to a customer does not deserve your politeness. They should not be in business. Period. Be nice enough to get your money back if that's what it takes. But then call them out so no one else gets ripped off.

...and that's me putting it nicely. Really.
Click to expand...


As an update, the manufacturer has agreed to take the tank back without hesitation. While not ideal to have the bubbles in the first place, the manufacturer was great to deal with.
 
Could someone tell if there is a reference chart on thickness of acrylic according to height for rimless and non rimless tanks. Also thickness of acrylic for the bottom piece.

I'm thinking of building a 36" x 24" x 10 high frag tank.
 
Hello,

I would like to remove the two baffles from this sump and add three new baffles to allow room for a refugium. I'd like to put one close to the skimmer for water to flow over, one close to the return for water to flow under, and one in between the two, just before the third for water to flow over.

I've been reading through this thread but am not sure if I should attempt so was hoping I could get a little help.

My plan is to cut the three baffles to size and either route or sand the edges down and Glue them in place with Weldon 4 following the procedure described throughout this thread. What kind of gap (if any) should I be looking for between the walls and the baffle?

To remove the baffles I plan on cutting them close with a dremmel and sanding down to the acrylic walls. I plan to get just shy of actually touching the walls.

I was hoping to use either the optix .220 or lexan .093 they sell at Home Depot but am not sure if this is a bad idea. I don't know what the general consensus is for using HD material for baffles.

Does this sound like it should work? I'm not particularly interested in ascetics, I just want to make sure the new baffles hold.

Thanks for any help.

unnamed.jpg
 
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i bought an acrylic tank last year that was built incorrectly and the craftsmanship was pretty poor, so i cut it down to sheets a while back. i'm finally getting around to where i'm actually going to put something back together, and i have a couple questions...

it's 3/4 acrylite gp, and i would like to build a frag tank out of it, dimensions will be roughly 54*28*17, with a 15" water column. so roughly 100 gallons. i can build this without buying anymore acrylic than what i have, is the calculator is correct when it says this will be fine unbraced? i plan on putting some 4" cross braces equally spaced across the top. feel free to tear apart my plan if you don't think it'll be safe.

acrylic thickness calc: http://www.sdplastics.com/aquaria1.html


my other question has been answered but i can't find it... router bit for edge prep? i remember a debate over spiral upcut and downcut, and i think straight flute was in there too... what do you use Floyd?
 
Should be fine with the cross braces, if you have enough I would just join pieces together to make a full top

I use a heavy 1.5" diameter trim bit, it's great. IME the spirals are good for cutouts or trimming excess but not for glue joints. When I've used them, maybe my feed rate was too fast but it pretty much pulverized the acrylic edges leaving little dimples here and there which resulted in small bubbles when solvent joining that edge. That is using a Milwaukee 5625 3.5HP Router too. Maybe if the bit was bigger it would help avoiding those itty bitty dimples
 
like this:

<a href="http://s8.photobucket.com/user/overflowin/media/Indigo%20Reef%20Build/frag_zps3b9c0924.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a43/overflowin/Indigo%20Reef%20Build/frag_zps3b9c0924.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo frag_zps3b9c0924.jpg"/></a>
 
Hello,

i will introduce my self first, I'm Michael from the netherlands.

i need some advice about large fresh water tanks, i've welded a stainless steel tank size: 3,00 x 1,50 x 1,30 L x H x D

i was planning to place a optiwhite glass in it, but considering the weight and clearance i'm gathering info to build it with acrylic.
So far i know in europe acrylic is a unknown product for aquarium in private tanks, so i need the advice from experts

A big company in the US advised me to use 25 mil pmma, but i think its to thin and it will bowl out.
The whole sheet will be sealed in a stainless steal angular profile of 10cm overlap.

lot of questions, i hope someone got some experiance and can advice me.

regards michael


 
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