Acrylic sump

[Allmost]

hello,
never worked with acrylic ... but now I want an acrylic sump ...

so how hard is it to work with acrylic ? I was thinking of getting the pieces cut by a plastic place we have near here, and glue/met them together myself ....

Ive make glass tanks many times before.

thanks

PS. 55"x16"x16" .... how thick should I go with acrylic ? 3/4 " ?
thanks.

 

[DustinB]

It's pretty easy really. As long as you use cell cast acrylic, a good blade, and a properly setup table saw it's easy to cut. I try to make all my width cuts at the same time, like the baffles and end pieces. That way they are all cut exactly the same width. Then I prepare the edges on a router table setup for jointing and run each side through once.

Gluing it up isn't so bad, I use the orange plastic triangle squares from home depot to keep the corners square. Small guitar strings cut up for pin spacers. You don't have to worry about the length of the front and back panels or the bottom, as long as they are long enough. You can trim the excess with a flush trim router bit.

Melev has a decent page on this: http://www.melevsreef.com/acrylics/sumps/chvy/chvy_sump.html
and his tools page: http://www.melevsreef.com/tools.html

I use weld-on #4. As for the thickness, 3/8 is probably best. You may not need a eurobrace at that thickness. My most recent sump was 40" x 12.5" x 12.5" with a 1" eurobrace using 1/4" cell cast. Maybe someone more experience will comment on the thickness, but I bet you could get away with 1/4" if you brace it properly. Mine is rock solid, though not quite as big.

 

[Allmost]

nice info, thank you.

I will get it cut professionally [they do it free of charge hahaha]

good news on the thickness !!! I should be find with 0.5" then ...

if anyone else has any tricks, let me knwo please

I thoght I would start with a small 10G acrylic tank to et used to glueing it first and then make the sump, should be fun.