Building your own Aquarium Introduction: The majority of us have a place at home which is perfect to host up an aquarium but since the place is not of a standard measurement, this cannot be done. It is relatively easy to build an aquarium and you will be amazed by the total cost your setup would be. After reading this step by step guide, you will be able to build your fish tank to your desired measurements. Materials: You will need few things to build up your aquarium but make sure everything is of a good quality. Glass plain glass is most recommended, but consider also the thickness besides the measurements. Silicon Sealer make sure the sealer can be used on aquariums, you can confirm this by reading on the back label of the sealer. Sealers which can be used on aquariums, do not release any toxic substances in the water which can be harmful to fish. There are many types of sealers at reasonable prices. Glass Paper (sandpaper used specifically on glass) - You can find this type of sand paper at a glazier s shop, you will probably not find it in an ordinary ironmongery, because it s a little bit expensive. This type of sandpaper is mage from industrial diamonds, which enable it to grind glass surface. A P40 would be very suitable for this job. Electrical tape Make sure the tape is of good quality, a good quality electrical tape will stick well to the glass and will be able to stretch itself and press both glass pains together.
Choosing the Glass: As I told you during the meeting,don t forget to cut the glassas shown in the diagram below To calculate how much shorter the side should be is very simple. Take the thickness of the glass you are using, for example lets say 5mm, now multiply by 2 the thickness 5mm X 2 = 10mm and there you have it, for this example the aquarium sides have to be 10mm shorter than the original size. Besides the length, width and depth of the aquarium, you also have to take in consideration the thickness of the glass to be used. Here under you will find a table which shows what thickness of glass to use. Just find your approx aquarium length and depth and the crossing box will indicate the thickness of the glass. Then you can go to a glazier to cut your aquarium glass.
Preparing the glass: As you will probably notice the glass will have very sharp edges and corners, so take the sandpaper and smoothen the edges and corners of both sides of the glass. After you finished sanding take a piece of cloth and clean the glass from any residual glass left from the sandpaper. Building the aquarium: Here comes the moment you were all waiting for. To begin with, you should build your aquarium on a level table (you can check this by using a spirit level), remember that when you build the tank, you can t move it until the sealer cures completely and last but not least, if you are building a heavy aquarium, made out of thick glass it is more advisable to build the aquarium on the spot, since after, it will be too heavy to carry.
Step 1. Take the bottom of the aquarium and add a thin layer of sealer to three edges. Step 2. Take the back glass and apply silicon to its sides and after place it on the silicon which you ve placed on the bottom. Use a heavy object to help the back glass to keep 90 degrees erect (if the glass you are using is heavy, it is advisable to tell some one to help you instead of using a heavy object). Step 3. Now take the side panel of the aquarium and make sure that the shorter side is the horizontal one, put it on the sealer you have on the bottom and also stick it to the sealer you have on the back panel. You don t need to set a heavy object to hold the side panel to place, because the back and side panel will stick together and won t fall, infact now you can remove the heavy object from the back panel.
Step 4. Now its time for the front panel. Apply sealer on the front of the bottom tank and also apply sealer to the sides of the front panel (like you did for the back panel).do not over do it with the silicon, keep it clean. Your tank should be like this when seen from above,
Step 5. Take the electrical tape and cut for strips of about 5cm each, now stick them to the corners of the aquarium. When sticking the tape, make sure you stretch it so when it will be attached to the glass, this will keep the aquarium sides bonded together. Step 6. Now its time to begin sealing the interior of the aquarium. Start off with the bottom. Put the nozzle of the sealer gun in one corner of the tank and start moving with a steady speed, when you have reached the middle stop, now go to the other corner and do the same and finally the two sealer track will join together at the middle. If you try to do a side without stopping at the middle, the gun will turn off your hand and you can end up doing a mess. See the picture for a better view.
Step 7. The is the part where you will get a little bit dirty. After applying the sealer to all the bottom sides, take your index finger and push the sealer to seal the bottom side and corners. In this picture you can see clearly the sealer while it is being smoothened.
You should end up with this result: Step 8. Do the same thing for the vertical sides by starting off from the bottom corner. Push the nozzle in the bottom corner to make sure the sealer bonds with the bottom corner.
Again use your finger to smoothen out the sealer. DO NOT THROW AWAY THE REMAINING SEALER ON YOUR FINGER!!!. Wipe the remaining sealer on the top corner of the aquarium to create a lump of sealer. This is called the EXTRA TURN OF WELD. This will give the sealer more force. Warning: If you do not do the extra turn of weld there is a big chance that when the aquarium will be filled up with water, the sealer will crack, thus ending in aquarium breaking. Here is another picture of the extra turn of weld.
The aquarium is now finished.
Know let the sealer cure. Different sealers have different curing time, look on the back of the sealer to see how long it is. NOTE: Large aquariums need stiffeners for a more strong hold. Due to the excessive pressure of water the front glass and the back glass may bend thus ending in the glass cracking, so connect the front glass and rear glass with stiffeners for a more strong hold If you have any questions just drop a line and will try to answer you on our Charles forum.