Do you like your 1 inch thick acrylic tank?

sugartooth

sugartooth

Reef bully
I am planning a 10 ft. x 4 ft. x 28" high tank and was thinking of going with 1" thickness all the way around.

Should be okay right?

Does it distort over time? Is it still clear years later?

Otherwise, what would you rather do instead if you did not like it?

Thanks in advance for your input
 
No, I do not plan to put any urchins. Possibly snails, and may someday turn into a full blown reef.
For now, the plan is deep water reef.

I just want this to last a long time, and flexible enough to change it if I want.
 
no, but I really like my 1 1/4" think acrylic
Click to expand...


:eek2:


Would you recommend going that thick, or you just wanted to be safer? Is it still clear or do you think it's somewhat distorts the viewing?

How long have you had it?
 
im going with 1" thick on my 240G cube, from what i was told by James at Envision Acrylics that 1" will be perfect i am also going with only a 3" eurobrace so i needed to go that thick
 
Tank is 4+ years old and I am the second owner. James at Envision made it. It is 1 1/4" bulletproof acrylic eurobraced. There is no distortion at all, and I sleep very well at night. Solid as a rock

You will never kick yourself for being safe over sorry.
 
My 108" x 48" x 32" is one inch thick all the way around with top and bottom 3/4"- no problems or deflection
 
just go to garf.org and enter in your dimension and it will tell you how thick to go i think u only need 1/2 inch thick im getting a 7'x 5'x 3' and im getting 3/4 for that with eurobrace
 
A 10' long tank that is 1" material should have cross bracing. It would bow at the center without it. It probably wouldn't fail but it would look bad! With cross bracing I don't think you would have any visible bowing. I am building a 6' X 6' x 32" tank using 1" but it will be euro braced with a 10" wide brace around the perimeter. I expect little to no visible bowing.
 
Hi,

I have an 8' L x 2' T x 3' T tank made by Clarity Plus that I'm getting ready to replace. It was purchased new in 1996. The tank is made from 3/4". It has had no problems over the years except scratching. You really need to determine what type of fish you’re going to keep. There are numerous toothy fish that can scratch the acrylic. About 5 years ago I placed a 5" Clown Trigger in my tank that has grown considerably and his teeth can scratch it. When scrubbing coralline algae or any algae these tanks can and will become scratched. Coralline algae can be like sand when you start to scrape it off. I'm going back to glass. Glass is much harder to scratch. Prior to this tank I had numerous glass tanks without these issues. I will not even begin to clean algae off the surface without changing my magnet pads out each time. I use the white acrylic cleaning pads and a new piece of sticky back velvet on my magnet each time I clean the surface. I also clean the exterior with cotton t-shirt material and fresh water prior to using the magnet each time. I've even found that a little water drops on the exterior surface that contain salt will scratch the surface if you wipe them hard. These methods have made my tank last 10 + years but now the time has come to spend a few thousand to replace it. I will not use acrylic again. Yes glass can scratch but not nearly as easily. The acrylic is clear and beautiful but longevity is just not like glass.
 
Wow, thanks everyone for the input.

I would feel that glass would be more worrisome in the long run with so much water. Also, the weight of the glass is what is turning me on to acrylic.

One more question, for a thicker acrylic, do the same types of scratches show up more or less than 1/2 or 3/4 inch?

Thanks again.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10870340#post10870340 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by sugartooth
One more question, for a thicker acrylic, do the same types of scratches show up more or less than 1/2 or 3/4 inch?
Click to expand...
As flat sheet goes, should not scratch any easier/harder than thinner material but when built - can be different: If the tank is engineered well, there shouldn't be much deflection which will help a good deal in keeping the scratching to a minimum. Less deflection = flat material = smooth plane for the scraper to move on = less scratching IME.

Hope this makes sense,
James
 
One potential downside of 1" thick acrylic, that I haven't seen mentioned yet is that there really aren't any magnetic holders for things like Tunzes or other powerheads, that will really hold securely through 1" material. The vortech is supposed to someday come out with a model for 1" material, but isn't available yet.

That's my only gripe about my 1" thick tank - also built by James from Envision Acrylics - beautiful tank and workmanship! - Thanks James (aka Acrylics)!
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10871210#post10871210 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by vapormd
One potential downside of 1" thick acrylic, that I haven't seen mentioned yet is that there really aren't any magnetic holders for things like Tunzes or other powerheads, that will really hold securely through 1" material. The vortech is supposed to someday come out with a model for 1" material, but isn't available yet.

That's my only gripe about my 1" thick tank - also built by James from Envision Acrylics - beautiful tank and workmanship! - Thanks James (aka Acrylics)!
Click to expand...

Actually I use the tunze magents through 1 1/14 and they hold fine, also use a magnavore magnet that works great

The have the stuff for the think tanks, you just gotta look
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10871584#post10871584 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by stlouisguy
Actually I use the tunze magents through 1 1/14 and they hold fine, also use a magnavore magnet that works great

The have the stuff for the think tanks, you just gotta look
Click to expand...

I guess it depends on your definition of "fine." I use Tunze magnet mounts on 1-inch thick and they work very marginally. The pumps can spin themselves at times, any nudging of the power cords causes chaos to ensue, etc.

If you look in the appropriate RC forums, you'll see I have asked and followed up on 1-inch solutions with Tunze and the Vortec guys several times. They both claim that it will happen eventually. The fact is that the best bet is probably either to machine a more permanent fixed mount or to have special, stronger magnets made up for you. I'm currently pursuing the latter.

Ben
 
i talked to james about that and his solution was to just use a thinner piece for the back and bottom (i will be using vortechs) so i went with 1" in the front, left, and right, on the back i used 3/4", and on the bottom james recommended 1/2" with a 1" eurobrace on the top
 
I use two 6200.500 Tunze magnets (rated for up to 3/4") to hold a wavebox in place, and it's worked fine on my 1" thick acrylic.

However, for my 6100 streams directed at an angle, the magnets weren't able to hold them in place very securely, and it only took a few nudges to get the stream to rotate into bad tailspin. If I had the streams directed straight forward, it worked well enough.

Regardless, with the 6200.500 magnets on 1" thick acrylic, my 2 year old kid was literally able pull the back half off without much effort - that got my attention pretty quick!

Tunze has been mentioning stronger magnets for a couple of years now - I guess they're just not enough of a market to get those magnets holders made.
 
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