Seeking Insight from Glass Tank Builders and Smart People

C

CuzzA

Active member
An opportunity has possibly came up today to make a change to my current tank order and I need some insight.

My tank builder has recently purchased some very advanced glass machinery including a CNC Glass cutter which opens the doors for a lot of possibilities when it comes to overflow design.

My current order was for a 96x30x24 tank with low iron front and sides. All sides are made from 15mm glass except the bottom which is 19mm. The tank will have an anodized aluminum rim. The plan for the overflow was 6x 1.5" holes for an internal/external overflow made from acrylic and a bean drain.

Now, since they've acquired this new machinery I inquired about notching the glass for the overflow. I haven't got a full commitment if they would be willing to do this, nor have I received a price. However, if they are and I find the price to be justified I would love to do it this way.

The reason for me seeking insight from you is perhaps some of you have a notched tank. I know Coast 2 Coast and Miracles offers this. Secondly, if I'm going to be the the first one they do this for I want to make sure the safety factor is there. I'm sure they have an engineer, but "I" want to "know" 300 gallons of water isn't going to end up on my floor and the reason why.

So the plan I have in my head is making the back pane 19 mm glass. Notch the glass just above where the bottom of the trim would be to hide the water line. Approximately 2 inches. And have an external glass box made from 12mm glass. Roughly 8" tall by 5" wide and whatever length the weir is.

Now the tricky part. How much to notch? I recall talking to a builder a long time ago and I believe they said an 8 foot tank 24 inches tall out of 19 mm glass would require 16 inches of glass remaining on both sides, effectively making it a 64" weir. Which I would be fine with.

I would like some thoughts on this and also other possibilities. For example, could this be done by doing 3x 24 inch notches? This way the aluminum rim would hold 4 sections of 8 inches of glass. Also, they can temper glass. Should I have them temper the back pane?

Thanks in advance for your feedback and being smart? ;)
 
Hey Ivan,

I did not make the change. I decided I didn't want to be the first for them nor would they agree to do it. But, if your builder will do it and the extra cash is not a concern, I say do it. I really like tanks without internal boxes and that is why I'm using the internal/external design to minimize the footprint of the internal box. Basically the next best thing.

Tank was delivered a few weeks ago, but I haven't made any progress on setting everything up other than what was done pre delivery. I plan on getting my butt in gear this weekend. This system will have a lot of automation, fail safes, etc. and extra attention to detail. So I'll be putting a lot of extra thought into everything I do. Build thread coming soon. ;)

D9C40F88-FA4E-4878-A254-397CD74B5FA1_zpsnzjqvxaz.jpg
 
I think it's great. Very well built, they were not conservative on the silicone. While maintaining straight lines they were able to apply it in such away that is what I would describe as a cove or 45 degrees with the corner glass, opposed to what we typically see as concave with the finger swipe. All edges were polished to my satisfaction. Perhaps a little more effort could have been put forth there. But it is glass we're talking about and not wood. I love the anodized aluminum frame. Solid as a rock. Loaded with black silicone and the cross bars are riveted to the rim. It should last forever. They also provided a thin cellulose pad which I think is important on a tank this size. It's not thick enough that it would be able to touch the center plate glass so there's no concern there.

Overall I think they did a fine job and the price was perfect. The big names better watch out. My only advice is to not use their 1/2" Siphon Stopper return or the H2Overflow on a big tank. You'll never be able to achieve a good amount of flow from a 1/2" return and there's no possible way you'll be able to effectively skim the surface of a full blown reef tank with that overflow on a big tank. Now for a smaller tank, they seem like fine products.

You can see a lot more of their work on their Facebook page.
 
Are you building your own overflow box or ordering from somewhere? I will likely be getting a tank from them in the near future, but not sure what I'm going to do about the overflow. Might try one of the ghost overflows.
 
I'm on the fence whether I'm going to do it myself or hire a local acrylic fabricator. So far I got a quote to do the full c2c internal/external for $200. For me to do it myself I'd have to buy a sheet of acrylic which would cost me $100. As much as I love to do things myself, I'm leaning toward having the local guy do it. :)
 
Also interested in the quality of the tank - I'm considering your builder or GC - and I'm local to your builder (about a 1/2 hour North). Very interested to know how they welded those pieces together and aluminum alloy used (I work with metals to pay the bills). If I can get some more insight from this company I'll share the details.
 
For my tank there were a couple small bubbles in 3 of the seams. The back two and one very small bubble in the front right. They aren't very noticeable and it's my understanding this happens sometimes. Perhaps this doesn't happen with some of the more popular tank builders and thus that's why they charge 3x as much. I don't know. Perhaps others with tanks from Miracles, Reef Savvy, etc. could chime in. Maybe it's very common. I do know it's common on many production tanks.

As for the rim, it's anodized aluminum. The corners and cross braces are riveted together with "tees and elbows" for lack of a better term and loaded up with black silicone. Black silicone is their standard, but I requested clear on the seams due to personal preference.

They do not offer any acrylic fabrication and push their H2Overflow, which I wouldn't use on a large marine tank. Of course they do offer glass overflow boxes. For me I'm using an internal/external overflow to minimize the footprint in the tank so I just had them drill the holes only and am in the process of building it out of black acrylic. They also push their Siphon Stopper return which seams like a decent product, but it only comes in 1/2 inch so again I wouldn't recommend it on a medium/large tank.

Being that they're a 1/2 hour away from you I would venture to guess you could save even more money by picking up as they offer "free" shipping, which we know is built into the cost of the tank.

Also, one last thing. They seem to be very busy. It took ~16 weeks to get me the tank from the day I paid for it. So if time is an issue I would bring it to their attention. I believe they offer a to the front of the line option for a fee.

That's all I can think of. Feel free to ask more questions and I'll be glad to answer.

Edit: They also started carrying 15mm (5/8") glass after I ordered my tank and upgraded it for me at no additional charge. My tank has 19mm glass on the bottom. No tempering.
 
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That is a nice looking tank. Been looking at them recently, considering a very large tank upgrade in a year or two, they are one I will certainly consider.
 
Cuzza - thanks for all of the info; A few small bubbles in the silicone wouldn't bother me.

I am worried that they are too busy at the moment; I haven't received a quotation for the tank that I requested over a week ago.

If i visit and get any additional information I'll be sure to let you know.
 
You're welcome. Mike is their sales rep. If you get him on the phone he'll give you a quote right then. You can also just use their website to generate a quote. For holes they charge $25 each.
 
Hey Paul. 3/4" would be a much better option than 1/2" on almost any tank. I'm using 4x 3/4" Sea Swirls so my return plumbing was already determined.

As for the the H2Overflow it has a couple problems.

1) It's a full siphon. So unless you have more than one or drill an emergency drain there is a potential for a clog and subsequently a flood.

2) And more importantly, on a large tank it simply will not clear the surface of the oils and other positively buoyant debris that is common on marine tanks. If you take my tank for example, it is 96 inches long. Their overflow is only 7.5" long. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt because it's 4 sided and use the 17.5 linear inches. Yet, since it's all at one area it's really more like 7.5". To make matters worse, it has teeth. So now you have to cut the linear inches in half. So the total is really 8 and 3/4 inches. Also, because of the teeth, the water level will rise and now allow water from the water column to flow through, which defeats the purpose of surface skimming. We want a thin sheet of water flowing over the weir. This doesn't happen with their product.

The absolute best overflow for a marine tank is a coast to coast overflow with a beananimal drain. This way 100% of the surface is cleared and a thin sheet of water can be maintained over the weir plus you have the benefits of a dead silent and fail safe drain. You can use plastic gutter guard behind the weir to keep inhabitants out.

If you like the minimal in tank footprint of the H2Overflow then I suggest making a PVC coast to coast bean animal like this one below (Although, I would cut the pipe horizontally rather than cutting slits). Pretty much the same same thing as their overflow, but much more effective. Of course you could just go with a traditional glass or acrylic overflow too.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/W_uZDp6hBIY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
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