[HELP] Aquarium Glass Dilemma

I send my old tank glass to be cut in town because of cracks and chips on it. I even left instructions on the glass with a marking pen so that they know what to cut and where and how much and I even asked them to keep the base as it is so that they can measure and make sure it fits right. I don't think the guys at the glass place know what they are doing or even if it's for aquariums. If that was the case, they would have done it properly in the first place.

So now I have a nice slightly big chip on the length side. Also the lengths are slightly too long. Width panes are exactly the same as the glass sides

History on the previous tank build before I took it apart:

When the aquarium was previously build, the glass sides didn't sit on top of the glass but were stuck to the sides of the base right to the bottom. Who builds tanks like this? I've seen lots of aquarium building tutorials and I have not seen anyone build a tank like this. Whoever it was clearly didn't know what they were doing.

So now I'm stuck with two lengths that are too long and the widths aren't right either.

It's 4mm glass and I have tried to cut it myself before I send it off to town to be cut - it wouldn't break nicely like I've seen in the videos. Had lots of small shards break off - I've tried everything that was suggested. I just think it's the type of glass that you can't just cut with a glass cutter and it needs to be machine cut. I don't even know what type of glass it is but I can tell you it's not shatterproof or safety glass like my other two tanks are.

So what are your suggestions?

• Base is 60 x 28.9
• Length sides - 60.9 x 28 (the one is 28.9)
• Width sides - 28 x 27.9

So somehow the measurements are off. My dad said I can put the sides together and let the long pieces stick out as it's only a few mm's. But I am not so sure if that's a good idea???

Oh and I can't find a single calculator online that would really help me out here. The one I found - it's in inches and that doesn't really help me at all.

 

i use this for basic sizes and then go mad with bracings if I lower the safety factor. I also draw my tanks in my drawing program and run stress analysys before ordering glass and building:

http://www.theaquatools.com/building-your-aquarium

 

Oh thank you so much, @Blade. It's frustrating when I can't get it right - I may be a numbers person for certain things but when it comes to building tanks and measuring glass, I'm absolutely useless. The last two builds - my dad had to work it out for me. LOL!!!

I've just been there earlier on - it doesn't seem to work or something? Or maybe it's bec of my Adblocker?

 

Aaah it was my Adblock Plus and Ghostery... I don't like adverts and getting tracked by certain things - that's how you get rubbish spam. Specially when you fill in forms and key words then get logged and boom you have spam.

 

I alsotried as we busy with a new tank but i also couldnt get in...

 

ok that site doesn't work at all. It hasn't been working well for quite some time now.... Ugh.

 

OH BTW when my parents picked up my glass, it was free of charge - we were very surprised.

 

Any solutions?

Sent from my D5503 using Tapatalk

 

@MariaS

This is what I found through Google Images - thought I'd try my luck and see if I can find something similar and this is from AquaTools pinned on Pinterest but like you and I have found, it's not working properly.



That might just give us an idea of what's what.

 

And another one here:

http://styfisher.com/build-aquarium-glass-thickness-see-here/

 

I am not sure if this link will work for you @MariaS - glasscalculator (XLS - spreadsheet file). I have currently open in Google Spreadsheets - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxCuu1AiRi-bb3V5cUFrRXAzTzQ

 

The calculator from aquatools is used quite often. On the tank build with the sides not ontop of the base, its called a floating base. It is very commonly used on large tanks where you have a thick base as it makes the tank a lot stronger due to the increase in contact area. And it also looks so much better in my opinion. My large marine aquarium has a 30mm base with the sides attached to the side. No imagine how ugly it would have looked if you had a 30mm base and then glass on top of that.

 

@mjmza thats' the problem there. the calculator isn't showing up on that website for some reason. Maria has the same problem too. Have you checked recently?

Also the problem is not the thickness of the glass. it's the width and length that I"m having a problem calculating...

 

The website is coming up but when you try going into the glass calculator it brings up adverts
Will keep looking and see what else i find

 

If it says glass thickness is 23mm, that means it's 2.3cm. Lets see the equation for this one as I'm trying to make sense of how to measure glass correctly without an online calculator.

2.3cm thickness * 2 = 4.6cm

Now lets look at the base which is in the middle.

120 - 115.4 = 4.6cm

So both outcomes have the same answer.

That means my width sides are wrong and should be cut by 4mm on each side of both panes, which makes it 8mm in total, in order to be able to fit all the glass onto the top of the base instead of the sides of the base.

so if I measure the glass as current. Height / depth of all sides should be 28.

Length - 60.9 x 28 (height)
Width - 27.9 x 28
Base - 60 x 28.9

Ok the cut measurements have all been wrong so far - my fault, I should have consulted my dad first before wrapping it up and sending it off.

What I really need is:

Base: 60 x 28.9 (same)
Width: 28.1 x 28 (current is 27.1)
Length: 60 x 28 (60.9)

I've come to the conclusion after doing a couple of calculations and diaphragms to double check that the last is the correct calculation.

 

Those are the ads embedded into the Aquatools website - that's why I use Adblock as sometimes websites use malware / keyloggers / viruses to secretly install and spy on everything you do and send you spam or try to trick you into something sinister like giving your money out, blah blah. I hate those types of websites, where they force you to try and turn off Adblocker only to find that they are stupid adverts in the first place.

 

Calculator works fine when doing it from a pc.

 

ok @mjmza what web browser are you using? I'm using Firefox so maybe that's the problem...

 

I thought as much.. will try find somewhere else

 

Seeeeeee? Ads by Google @MariaS