Integrity of rimless tanks? Do the rims make a difference?

[Candi]

Basically hoping someone with more education can explain it to me. I've been leary of rimless tanks since the trend started years ago, I swore I'd never own one... yet right now I have a new Red Sea Reefer 350 waiting to get filled up in my dining room.

My trusty, very old, RR 70g Oceanic has the silicone overage on the inside corners peeling away. The silicone between the glass seems fine but this made me nervous enough to decide to upgrade big time. Now that the new tank is here I see it doesn't even have silicone in the area that is peeling away on my old tank, and it's rimless.

How much integrity does the rim offer a tank? Could you add external framing around the top/bottom of a rimless and improve the strength or lesson the chance of the seams giving, or would it be counter productive to how they are built? Ignoring the aesthetics could you basically build a "rim" that would be made to just fit over the tank and slide down for the bottom and another for the top that could also rest on the top edge and would that help/hurt/make no difference in a tank designed to be rimless?

 

[nereefpat]

Rims on tanks dramatically increase the safety factor (engineering term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factor_of_safety).

To make up for not having rims, rimless tanks have to be built with much thicker glass, so they bow less and have more surface area for the seams to stick together.

Adding a rim to a rimless tank would make it safer, if done correctly....but it probably isn't needed..probably.

Hope that helps.

 

[mcgyvr]

A properly built rimless tank is just as "safe" as a trimmed tank..
The safety factor of a rimess tank is often twice that of a trimmed tank so one could say its even safer..

The inner silicone seal on a trimmed tank doesnt offer much structural help at all..Its really there to protect the main seal between the glass...
As rimless tanks are thicker glass they have a wider/stronger joint vs a trimmed tank.

 

[ThRoewer]

Strength aside, a rim also prevents water spilling out easily. I have 2 rimless/braceless tanks and really hate that I can't run the pumps as I like because they may just blow the water out of the tank.

 

[clevername]

Strength aside, a rim also prevents water spilling out easily. I have 2 rimless/braceless tanks and really hate that I can't run the pumps as I like because they may just blow the water out of the tank.

This! Even just putting your hand in and moving rock around splashes out.

 

[Oldreeferman]

Rimless looks pretty but i like having rims on my 2 tanks because of whats been said and it lessons evaporation greatly with glass covers & no fish can jump out. That alone makes up for any extra maintenance or visual woes to me anyway. Doubt id ever go for an open tank my luck some kid would dump something in it or worse. I get a lot of visitors..............

 

[moondoggy4]

In Ca rimmed tanks are popular due to earthquakes. I just ordered a tank and it is euro braced top and bottom.