New 75 project

Have you thought about putting the overflow on the outside of the tank?  Great start, I love watching builds.

The only problem i would see with the overflow on the outside it the distance away from the wall, IMO i don't think it looks that great with a big gap behind the aquarium

Corey, what sillicone are you using? How thick is the glass? Its looking good.

Edited by tcfab - April 13 2010 at 10:14pm

tcfab wrote: Corey, what sillicone are you using? How thick is the glass? Its looking good.

I can't tell you which silicone I'm using, sorry. All I can say is that I've had help in choosing it.

The glass is 1/2" thick. I am not going very tall, and after doing the calcs, 1/2" seems fine. Thicker glass is beneficial for the joints only, given the height I have. I would have loved to do thicker glass (I see your tank has 3/4" thick glass), but costs and availability of the 3/4" starphire glass pushed my decision to 1/2" glass.

I got a deal on the 1/2" starphire glass that I couldn't pass up.

tcfab wrote: 1/2" on a 20" tall tank will be fine. Are you doing a bottom eurobrace? I know which sillicone to use, just making sure you talked to some builders

No, I'm probably not going to do a bottom euro-brace. Seriously, the side joints worry me more than the bottom. I didn't know which silicone to use originally, but I found a couple good ones. It isn't hard to find, really.

fishoutawater wrote: Love those pumps, I have to touch it to make sure it is running because you can not hear it. I have two on my 40 with sump and temps still stay under 79 with only 3 computer fans for cooling.

If only they didn't heat up the water so much, I'd use the Velocity/Blueline/Poseidon titanium T4 pump every time. I will try it this time.

Lighting:

I'm leaning toward all T5's, but this could change. We'll see.

I gotta build a tank first.

laynframe wrote: I would recommend a eurobrace on the bottom it doubles up your glue joint surface area and the bottom of the tank has the most pressure. If you look at the high end tank manufacturers you'll find the bracing on the bottom, it's cheap insurance! I dont know what silicone your using but I recommend momentive rtv 100 series, it's a addhesive silicone. I have used it several times with zero failures. And if it is good enough for LeeMar it's good enough for me ;). Just my two cents. Looks good!

The hydrostatic force at the bottom of a 24" tall tank (with top eurobracing) that the silicone has to resist is about 80 pounds per linear foot, or about 13 psi on a 1/2" joint. My Lee-mar tank is like this. The hydrostatic force at the bottom of a 20" tall rimless tank is about 70 lbs per linear foot, or about 12 psi for a 1/2" joint. There are significant flexural forces in a rimless that in which the ratio of the length to height is greater than 2, which includes my tank, and I'm not including this.    I think eurobracing is fine, but probably overkill, though. I look at it as a belt & suspenders approach, which isn't bad. I'll look into it.

I am trying a certain kind of silicone, but here are some examples of the recommended silicones out there for aquariums:

Dow Corning 732
GE (Momentive) RTV 108
Perennator AQ 201 (the packaging, although in german, seems awfully close to the Aqueon stuff)
Aqueon aquarium silicone
GE silicone I

There are UV-set glues out there as well that will bond glass to PVC, etc. but these are expensive and require a UV light to cure.

I have the silicone, tape, alcohol, etc. I hope to get going Saturday. I bought extra silicone so that when I screw up and redo the tank, it's no problem. Murphy says that I'll get it right the second or third time around.

Lets see some silicone going on already