# Planning to build a plywood tank



## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Key word is planning for now. My wife and I are starting the homebuying process, and this will be going into said home once bought. Could happen pretty quick once we actually get off our butts and start talking to banks and realitors.

Anyways, this'll be a pretty big tank, but not monster sized. I don't want it to be to unreasonable to actually filter and heat and do water changes, etc. Initially, the stock I have in mind is mbuna, but I may be open to other suggestions as well.

More down to it, based on the above, I've decided to plan out the largest tank I could build out of 2 sheets of plywood. (later on, I may modify this to the largest tank AND sump combination I can build out of 4 sheets of plywood, but we'll see how this planning stage goes). This means, I'm going for 8' length, unless I decide to spring for the 4'x10' plywood from the marine plywood supplier I have in mind - the planning is the same regardless of which length I ultimately end up choosing, which probably has as much to do with the space I have to set up the tank as well as the extra costs, and I won't know that for a while yet. Going with 8' for now, and laying it out, accounting for room for cuts and all that, I end up with a tank that I'll nominally call 8'x2.5' footprint and 2' deep. Actual internal dimensions and volume would be roughly 94.5"x 30.75", with a waterline estimated at 22.75" - just north of 285 gallons (US).

I mentioned I'd be using Marine Plywood - planning on using a mahogany marine plywood. This stuff is very high quality, designed for building boat hulls. Expensive stuff too - $112 per sheet for the 4x8 sheets, and $190 per sheet for the 4x10 sheets. Thats for the 18mm (slightly less than 3/4") thick sheets. Plan on construsting this tank frameless - meaning I'll glue and screw the plywood panels together at the seems. Sealing the tank, I'm planning on West Systems Epoxy, which I'll also use as the glue when screwing the panels together. Although I haven't researched it too much I know its expensive and I may decide its cost prohibative and try a different brand. The plan is to epoxy inside and out, totally encapsulating the plywood - its what they do for boat building. And I'll reinforce the epoxy with fiberglass, again probably inside and out. That'll provide abrasion resistance, and help keep the brittle epoxy from cracking.

The viewing window on this tank will be 90"x19.75", and require a sheet of glass that is 93.5"x21.75". So, this is where I have a couple questions:

*1) I'm only alowing for an overlap with the front frame of 1" on each side of the glass, do you guys think thats enough?

2) I'm planning on 1/2" thick plate glass. I figured that would be enough since the tank is only 24" deep and actually the water pressure will only be acting on the glass to a depth of 20.75". Thoughts? Eh, I'm the engnieer I guess I should probably run some calculations and figure it out haha .*

Alright I guess its time for a picture - I like to make solid models of everything that pops into my head, so here's a pic of the model I came up with:










Whats not shown (yet) is all the screws holding it together. What I want to show you here is the front frame. You'll see its made from 4 pieces butted up together. In order to get the extra half a foot width on the footprint, thats how it had to be done. Otherwise, 2' would be the max width and there'd be a lot more scrap plywood at the end of the build. Keep in mind around the edge of the frame there'll be screws every couple inches, and where the frame pieces but together, it'll be held together with epoxy and fibreglass tape. The top is braced front to back currently shown as a 4" brace every 2 feet but I can add more as appropriate. Despite looking entirely underbuilt compared to what I've seen for most DIY plywood tank front frames, I'm confident it will work due to not only the epoxy/fibreglass holding it together (stronger than the wood), but also because the force of the water pressure doesn't act in a way that would try to rip the frame apart where the pieces butt together.

*3) Thoughts on that front frame as I've described it?*

So thats where I'm at so far. I'll accept any thoughts or suggestions in general. Oh, if anyone has any good ideas for a stand for this thing, I'm all ears. The intent would be to put this behind (or as part of) a wall so the stand won't have to look good just be functional. Its just that after building the stand for my 125g, I'm less than confident in my ability to build a perfectly flat and level surface using the same method, and for this tank anything less than flat and level will likely crack the epoxy and sink the tank.

Soon, I'll model the stand and the sump to go with this tank, and I'l like to also plan out and model (roughly) the plumbing.


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## Rick_Lindsey (Aug 26, 2002)

Only one question so far... Why not go whole hog with a 48" width? 

-Rick (the armchair aquarist, who's distant future plans include a similar plywood built-in tank in a hypothetical house, but who's nearterm plans are much simpler at 29gallons lol!!)


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## cantrell00 (Oct 30, 2010)

> 1) I'm only alowing for an overlap with the front frame of 1" on each side of the glass, do you guys think thats enough?


Would really depend on how the corners were connected. If only a simple butt-flush connection, probably not. If using a more elaborate & robust joining method - maybe.

Hard to say.. I would send a PM to "thefishguy".. He has built numerous plywood tanks.



> 2) I'm planning on 1/2" thick plate glass. I figured that would be enough since the tank is only 24" deep and actually the water pressure will only be acting on the glass to a depth of 20.75". Thoughts? Eh, I'm the engnieer I guess I should probably run some calculations and figure it out haha Razz.


The depth of the tank (front to back) won't effect the pressure being applied. The height & width will... That being said, I think a height of 20" of water will be fine with 1/2"

Here is a chart I found...


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## cantrell00 (Oct 30, 2010)

Here is another link to a build very similar in size to the one you have in mind... VLDesign @ monsterfishkeepers.com

http://www.vldesign.com/DIY_1500Gallon_Aquarium.pdf


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## electriccichlid (Jul 26, 2011)

i think that the idea works well and that the best thing to do is to build it into the wall because of it only having a front glass it would work perfectally to go into the wall


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## BigDaddyK (Nov 6, 2006)

I'd personally be concerned with only 1" of 18 mil. plywood. If it were my project (and it was just a short time ago LOL) I'd go with at least laminating two pieces of the ply together. In my case I built a frame out of 2x2 that were glued and screwed (excessively) to the plywood. this did make a 2" frame (after drywall) but i'm much more confident in a 1.5" x 1.5" piece of wood than I am with a .75" x 1" piece. the part that concerns me most is the .75" part. That's not a lot of space to really hold on to the other piece of plywood.

By no means am I saying that it can't be done or that my method is correct. I'm just voicing an opinion.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Rick_Lindsey said:


> Only one question so far... Why not go whole hog with a 48" width?
> 
> -Rick (the armchair aquarist, who's distant future plans include a similar plywood built-in tank in a hypothetical house, but who's nearterm plans are much simpler at 29gallons lol!!)


Good question, somewhat complicated answer. I guess the first thought is the tank would start getting too big to be in the somewhat reasonable range I'm shooting for. Just for curiousity, I roughed out a couple options for a hypothetical 8x4 tank. I could get an 8x4x2 out of 2 1/4 sheets of ply, using the remaining 75% of the 3rd sheet of ply to build a smallish 65 gallon sump. It'd be a 475ish gallon tank, sump may not be big enough. Also, if I'm going to have 4 feet of width, I think I'd need to have a taller tank to fully appreciate the width. Somehow I feel like a 19" tall veiwing window wouldn't be enough.

If I wanted to build just the tank out of 3 sheets of plywood, I think the best I could do would be something on the order of 8'x4' with a depth of 36". That'd give me the viewing window I'd want for sure, but now I'm up to 700 gallons - operating costs (heating, filtering, water changes) now all go way up. Also, I'd need thicker glass of bigger dimensions, possible thicker ply, and with the extra depth and width to the tank I'd start to doubt whether the construction methods I intend to use would be sufficient.

So in short, I guess you could say as of this minute, I suspect the full 8x4 would give me more tank than I'm ready for, cost more to get there, add more risk to the project I'm not sure I'm ready to accept, and probably challenge my intended methods of constructing, filtering, heating, and just operating in general. But maybe its a second tank, or maybe I plan out both tanks and decide the bigger tank is within my means and convince myself to go for it. We'll see.



cantrell00 said:


> The depth of the tank (front to back) won't effect the pressure being applied. The height & width will... That being said, I think a height of 20" of water will be fine with 1/2"


 In my terminology, length and width is the footprint, and depth is the depth of the water in the tank 

But yeah, I came to the same conclusion as you for why 1/2" glass would be fine.



cantrell00 said:


> Would really depend on how the corners were connected. If only a simple butt-flush connection, probably not. If using a more elaborate & robust joining method - maybe.


Well, I think I consider butt-flush held together with epoxy/fiberglass to be elaborate and robust but maybe I'm wrong. What do you consider elaborate and robust for connecting the corners of the frame? If there's a better way to do it that I have the means to do, I'm all ears. For example, I suppose I could drill some holes and press in some wooden or even steel dowels without too much trouble, and then epoxy and fiberglass the thing together and that's pretty much guarenteed to be stronger in sheer at the joints of the frame than the plywood alone. Does that sound like a good idea?



cantrell00 said:


> Here is another link to a build very similar in size to the one you have in mind... VLDesign @ monsterfishkeepers.com
> 
> http://www.vldesign.com/DIY_1500Gallon_Aquarium.pdf


woah thats much bigger than the tank I proposed in the OP. 5 times bigger. Impressive for sure. Actually I have been ninja-ing around MFK for a while and did come across one tank built almost exactly the same way I intend to build: http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?143924-206G-Plywood-Tank...Done-Part1. Little different dimensions, but lots of the same concepts as far as constructing the tank goes.

Keep the comments, questions and suggestions coming guys. Thats why I made this thread now, so that when I'm ready to start building, I know exactly what I'm doing, I'm confident it will work, and I'll have a good estimate on how much it will cost me.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

BigDaddyK said:


> I'd personally be concerned with only 1" of 18 mil. plywood. If it were my project (and it was just a short time ago LOL) I'd go with at least laminating two pieces of the ply together. In my case I built a frame out of 2x2 that were glued and screwed (excessively) to the plywood. this did make a 2" frame (after drywall) but i'm much more confident in a 1.5" x 1.5" piece of wood than I am with a .75" x 1" piece. the part that concerns me most is the .75" part. That's not a lot of space to really hold on to the other piece of plywood.
> 
> By no means am I saying that it can't be done or that my method is correct. I'm just voicing an opinion.


I definitely appreciate the opinion, I'm no expert myself.

I'm a little confused about exactly which part you're talking about. Are you talking about where the 4 frame pieces come together, where the frame connects to the bottom and sides, or where the glass overlaps the frame?


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## Rick_Lindsey (Aug 26, 2002)

Rhinox said:


> somewhat complicated answer..... So in short, I guess you could say as of this minute, I suspect the full 8x4 would give me more tank than I'm ready for, cost more to get there, add more risk to the project I'm not sure I'm ready to accept, and probably challenge my intended methods of constructing, filtering, heating, and just operating in general.


Hah, in other words you're actually close to starting the project so you need a much larger dose of realism in your plans than I do . I do think though that even with a 19" tall viewing window, 4 feet of width would be amazing... like looking into the lake, so much depth before you get to an artificial boundary... If course then there'd be more places for fish to live where you couldn't see them (assuming you had any foreground rocky areas) but I guess thats the price you pay . Sounds like you've got a good handle on what *you* want though, and that's what matters! I still haven't figured out where'd I'd be able to put a hypothetical 4' wide tank behind a wall in my hypothetical house!

If I had to guess, I'd say BigDaddy's concern is with the glass overlap, that you only have a 1" ring of plywood holding that glass on (and depending on the strength of those butted joints, it might effectively be more like a 1" stripe at the top and bottom, rather than a ring).

I suspect that many plywood tanks (like many stands) are massively overbuilt... I'm hoping McDaphnia will chime in, as he has built a number of plywood tanks that are just 3/4" plywood (no dimensional wood) that I believe have stood the test of time, to the tune of a decade or more... Grab a grain of salt though since this is all hearsay from years ago.

-Rick (the armchair aquarist)


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

> Hah, in other words you're actually close to starting the project so you need a much larger dose of realism in your plans than I do


haha yeah thats probably the best way to put it. I did start a thread like this a while back with a more "dream-sized" tank, then lost interest in it because I couldn't see the starting point down the road. I still have the partially completed solid model though. This is like a version 2.0 of that design, aside from being more realistically sized, I'm hoping for a more efficient construction method (via being frameless)



> If I had to guess, I'd say BigDaddy's concern is with the glass overlap, that you only have a 1" ring of plywood holding that glass on (and depending on the strength of those butted joints, it might effectively be more like a 1" stripe at the top and bottom, rather than a ring).
> 
> I suspect that many plywood tanks (like many stands) are massively overbuilt... I'm hoping McDaphnia will chime in, as he has built a number of plywood tanks that are just 3/4" plywood (no dimensional wood) that I believe have stood the test of time, to the tune of a decade or more... Grab a grain of salt though since this is all hearsay from years ago.


hmmm... Well here's my thinking. The glass transfers the force of the water pressure to the frame. Because the overlap is pretty much right next to where the frame attaches to the bottom and sides (via screws and epoxy) and because the overlap is only 1", the frame isn't going to bend any. In other words, the stress the frame feels is all shear. Now compare the front frame to the back panel. Where the back attaches to the bottom and sides, the plywood will feel the same shear, and possibly a more significant bending component depending on how much the ply wants to bow out. That means there's not going to be any more stress on the front frame than the back frame - its holding back the same force, and its a pure shear. So if the 3/4" frame around the front is a problem, then it should also be a problem for the same reasons for the back panel as well.

I think I'll be fine with those butted joints. The epoxy used to bond them together will be stronger than the wood, but I could also pop in some steel dowels before I epoxy the panels together and won't have to give the joints another thought. dowel pins But when I examine how the glass pushes on the frame, theres no load thats going to try to shear those butted joints apart.

And yeah, I know of at least one tank built similarly to how I'm thinking of doing: broken link from previous post. I'm not trying to pass judgement on other's tanks and calling them overbuilt, but my entirely baseless opinion is that if a given size tank could be built solidly from X thick glass held together with nothing but silicone, then I should be able to the same size tank out of the same X thick plywood epoxied together and not expect any problems. I think the tank I'm building could actually be built out of 1/2" plywood (front frame and all), but I'll probably stick with the 3/4" stuff a) so it doesn't bow as much (less likely to crack the epoxy), and b) because it'll be easier to edge glue and screw the seams with the thicker ply.

The other aspect of the 1" overlap I was initially worried about was whether there was enough surface area for the silicone to bond and seal the glass - not to worried about the sealing aspect actually, moreso whether I would have to worry about the silicone letting go when the tank was empty or being moved due to the weight of the glass. Any thoughts there?


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## BigDaddyK (Nov 6, 2006)

*Rick_Lindsey* is on the correct path. I'm concerned with the 4 pieces that will frame out the front of the tank. I'm worried about those seams and worried about how much wood is going to be holding on to the glass

Again I can't say it won't deal well with the pressure etc. but I personally wouldn't feel comfortable with just the 1" holding in the glass. Most folks do 2". I dunno.. just not enough imo

regardless of the final product design I wish you the best of luck and from recently building one you'll have a great sense of accomplishment and it will definitely be your favorite tank 

*edit: your explanations above cover off my concerns. *


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## cantrell00 (Oct 30, 2010)

Rhinox said:


> Rick_Lindsey said:
> 
> 
> > Only one question so far... Why not go whole hog with a 48" width?
> ...


Finger joints or dove tail joining would be a much stronger joint than butt joining. My concern is that with only 1" of wood around the edge of the glass & joined to the sides, there is the potential for a lot of "flexing" that could pop the seams. The whole face is only as strong as it's weakest link..

Yeah you are right about the comparison in size to the link I provided. Sorry about that.

That being said, that particular design held water & never succumed to a structural failure so if you made it the same way, the only difference is that it would just be on a much smaller scale.

There is also so info on the stand design he used. I love the way he integrated into the room as a wall...

Have you seen the 2600 gal build thread he has going now? :drooling:

THAT would be an awesome Mbuna aquarium. The possibilities would be almost limitless. Most of the conventional rules of keeping peacocks/haps & mbuna together would no longer apply.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

> Finger joints or dove tail joining would be a much stronger joint than butt joining.


Thats what I was sort of thinking about mimicing with the dowels. I don't think I know how to do that type of joining, but I'm pretty sure I can drill a few holes and press in some dowels and end up with something just as strong if not stronger.

I modeled up the sump I have in mind for this tank. Its the biggest I could get out of 1 sheet of plywood with the dimensions I want. The internal footprint is 74"x19.5", and the water line will be set for about 12" of depth. Thats a actual volume of 75g. This'll bring the system volume up to 360 gallons, plus whatever hangs out in the plumbing while the pump is running. Here's a pic with it sitting in front of the display for scale:










The reason for the width and depth dimensions is that the filter media will be sheets of poret foam - I designed it to fit the 13"x19.5" sheets. I think I could fit up to seven 4" thick sheets of the foam comfortably. That is a total volume of foam that will be submerged at all times of over 6550 in^3, or about 28.4 gallons. The foam is intended to do all of the filtration, but I suppose if I feel like it I could stuff more media in between the foam sheets. I'm not sure it will be needed though - for reference, a single fx5 canister filter has a volume of around 5 gallons, so figure I'm looking to have the volumetric equivalent in foam of over 5 fx5's if I go with 7 sheets of foam. If I did my math right, assuming I end up with something around a 2000GPH pump, the average linear speed of the water in the sump through the foam will end up being about 0.5 in/s - just a sanity check to make sure 19.5x12 is a big enough cross sectional area for my sump. I'm not sure what the ideal linear speed of flow through the foam should be, but in my non-expert opinion, 0.5 in/s doesn't appear to be "too much".

Still don't know what I want to do for the stand. Initially I wanted the sump under the stand, but I think I might run into the problems of 1) not able to remove the sump once the tank is set up and in place, and 2) makes it harder to get a perflectly flat and sturdy surface for the display because the only vertical support will be around the perimiter if I have to leave room for the sump. So, not 100% sure what I want to do yet. I'm all ears for ideas, or I'll just come up with something random and let you guys give me suggestions for how to improve it. Tomorrows project to model something up perhaps.



cantrell00 said:


> Have you seen the 2600 gal build thread he has going now? :drooling:
> 
> THAT would be an awesome Mbuna aquarium. The possibilities would be almost limitless. Most of the conventional rules of keeping peacocks/haps & mbuna together would no longer apply.


if only........ I'd love to have a tank that big for (relatively) small fish. :drooling: :drooling: Unfortunately, its probably well out of my means, and I wonder how much it costs to operate $$$....


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## JimA (Nov 7, 2009)

I think that guys tank is great but how does he get to his lights other than stand in the tank I guess, same with the aqua scape or trying to catch the fish if you wanted to remove one?


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## cantrell00 (Oct 30, 2010)

Rhinox said:


> > Finger joints or dove tail joining would be a much stronger joint than butt joining.
> 
> 
> Thats what I was sort of thinking about mimicing with the dowels. I don't think I know how to do that type of joining, but I'm pretty sure I can drill a few holes and press in some dowels and end up with something just as strong if not stronger.
> ...


Dowels absolutely would help...

It is in a basement so he probably doesn't have large ambient temp swings to combat. Water is relatively cheap so the water changes shouldn't be too bad.

A tremendously smaller reef tank would probably be more expensive to operate than what he has actually.


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## cantrell00 (Oct 30, 2010)

JimA said:


> I think that guys tank is great but how does he get to his lights other than stand in the tank I guess, same with the aqua scape or trying to catch the fish if you wanted to remove one?


I don't know much at all about the HUGE SA's they keep so don't really know. As for the lights, it looks like he could walk all the way down the length of the tank with the supports he has on top running from front to back...

The other huge monster tanks I have seen on that site don't have much 'scaping at all. Actually, once you get past the initial shock of just how big the tanks are - they really aren't that attractive to me...

Now... If he did one end of that tank as a rocky shore line & gradually made it more open water towards the other end AND stocked it with Malawan's in a way that is consistent with the natural habitat of the lake, well... THAT would impress me.

Other than it's size, the rest seems almost like novelty to me. JMO..

Sorry for the hi-jack, Rhinox..

Oh- if your sump is basically a 75 gallon, why not just buy a cheap second hand craigslist tank & save yourself the trouble of building one out of plywood?


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## BillD (May 17, 2005)

If I were doing this, (and I do have a pile of exterior plywood in the garage), is to first get the glass. I would try to find a suitable piece of salvage glass, and build around it. I also wouldn't spend the money for marine ply if I was going to encase it in epoxy.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

cantrell00 said:


> Sorry for the hi-jack, Rhinox..
> 
> Oh- if your sump is basically a 75 gallon, why not just buy a cheap second hand craigslist tank & save yourself the trouble of building one out of plywood?


No worries, use my thread all you like.

The dimensions of a standard 75 aren't really that great for what I want to do with the sump. Its only 4' long so thats fewer sheets of foam I could fit in it, and even though the sheets would have a bigger cross section, I'd have to cut them to fit I think so thats foam waste thats throwing away money. I'll have to drill some holes to plumb up the sump how I'd like and I'd rather drill holes in plywood than glass. The sump will also be built first so it'll be my practice to try out the construction techniques I have in mind before building the display. Considering cost, I'll use 1/2" ply on the sump ($75), screws are cheap, and I sort of figure the epoxy I'll use to seal it to be free due to the fact that I'll probably have to buy more than I need on the display, so I can either use the extra on the sump or nothing, either way I'll have already paid for it.

So in the end, the cost of building this sump will be less than $100 which is in the same ballpark I'd expect to buy a used 75g for, it'll be my practice run before building the display, and it'll be built exactly to the dimensions I want rather than having to modify my plans to fit an existing tank's size.



BillD said:


> If I were doing this, (and I do have a pile of exterior plywood in the garage), is to first get the glass. I would try to find a suitable piece of salvage glass, and build around it. I also wouldn't spend the money for marine ply if I was going to encase it in epoxy.


Well, I'm not really approaching this from a standpoint of building the tank as cheaply as possible. My design philosophy is to basically pick a tank size I think I can afford to operate, and then figure out how to build it as efficiently as possible without cutting corners or using inferior materials. After everything is planned out, I might look into areas I can save some money without sacrificing quality. For example, I'm for now planning for west systems epoxy because I understand it to be the best stuff I can get, but its also expensive, and I may decide later its too costly and that a different type of epoxy is just as capable and less expensive enough to justify the switch. But thats later, for now I'm planning for the best no compormise materials I know of, and I'll consider trade-offs for cost later on. My final sanity check will probably be, can I buy a pre-fab tank of similar size for the same price. If the answer is yes, then I don't build. If the answer is no, then time to get to work.

As for plywood, probably not something I'm going to compromise on. Marine ply is better quality plywood regardless of how its sealed. As I understand it (and I once went through a phase where I was going to build a boat so I've done a bunch of research), encapsulating the plywood with epoxy doesn't mean you can get away with a lesser grade of plywood. The plywood gives the structure all the strength, the epoxy adds little strength. There are also other aspects of marine ply that make it better - uniformity of plies, better glue between plies, no voids in the core plies, just to name a few.

As for glass, if I come across a nice piece I can salvage that saves me a significant amount of money, I may change my plans to build a tank around a piece of glass. but its not something I can count on. For now, I have to plan on buying glass. If you can give me and tips on how to go about finding glass to salvage, however, I'd really appreciate it. Definitely something I would look into, I just don't know where to look.


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## cantrell00 (Oct 30, 2010)

> As for plywood, probably not something I'm going to compromise on. Marine ply is better quality plywood regardless of how its sealed. As I understand it (and I once went through a phase where I was going to build a boat so I've done a bunch of research), encapsulating the plywood with epoxy doesn't mean you can get away with a lesser grade of plywood. The plywood gives the structure all the strength, the epoxy adds little strength. There are also other aspects of marine ply that make it better - uniformity of plies, better glue between plies, no voids in the core plies, just to name a few.


Whatever you decide - don't buy that cheap Chinese ply sold @ Lowe's.. It is notorious for holes/gaps & other inconsistencies in the ply's.


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## BigDaddyK (Nov 6, 2006)

If I can pass along a "worth the money" comment. don't save on the glass. Get StarPhire. it's the thing I am most happy about with my tank. it's not cheap but imo very much worth the extra $$ I have a 135 on one side of the room with 'regular' glass and the 310 with StarPhire. It honestly makes the tank come alive it's easier to see the depth of the tank and the colors of the fish really jump out! Some of the fish were in the 135 and when moved into the 310 my wife even noticed the colors and asked me if they were the same fish :lol:

As far as the West systems option. I ended up going away from using that brand due to speaking to the local distributor. They use the product on boats and he said that it was something that would need to be painted on while the wood is still horizontal as it is too 'loose' and when painted on vertically (i.e. sides and back of the tank) it would settle considerably to the lowest point. That said I don't think it's a bad product but I had the tank glued and screwed by the time I came to that realization.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

*BigDaddyK*
Thanks for the advice! Honestly don't have any idea how much glass would cost me, so I just went to glasscages.com to look up their prices because I know they sell the starfire glass.

For 1/2" thick glass, starfire is $15 per square foot and regular is $9. I'd need approximate 16 square foot (8x2), a little less actually., but 16 ft^2 of starfire glass would only run me $240 + shipping. Thats not bad at all, and only $100 more than normal glass, I'd say thats probably worth it.


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## BigDaddyK (Nov 6, 2006)

$15 is a huge deal. Up in Canada it's almost double that!!!


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## cantrell00 (Oct 30, 2010)

Do they only charge you for waht you buy or for a sheet & they cut it to your specs?


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

from the website they list price per square foot with a disclaimer that says *depending on cutout* - not sure exactly what that means - probably that they charge you for whatever is unusable scrap after they're done.

If they're charging me for the whole sheet, I want the whole sheet dammit. If they charge me for scraps, I'd tell em to pack up the scraps for me as well.

They deliver by truck on a delivery/show schedule, for what they call a small fee. They have cleveland on the schedule, but I could also probably make columbus. Sounds like thats probably how I'll be getting my glass once I'm closer to the time I'll start building. I'm excited, I thought it was going to cost me a lot more for glass.


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## Coln (Dec 17, 2007)

This is going to happen I think, only concerns are having the glass just in plywood not in a wooden
frame and the joints and rest of tank with no framed support. My tank is similar size and have
2x4 framing all around with metal supports across the corners and when the water is low 
they are flexible but when tank is full they have pressure on them just dont underestimate the
pressure on the tank from the water. 
I used west epoxy and would use again only change would be colour alternate coats.
Have box of disposable gloves and kitchen roll handy during epoxy found that helped 
Well impressed so far, Col


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