Braceless?

[Aqua sobriquet]

When I see tanks like this I wonder what size/thickness glass can safely go braceless. It’s one of the things I like about my two Nano’s but I’m still thinking about replacing them with a bigger tank.

 

[Aleman]

Take a look at the work of Aquariums for Life... 300 by 60 by 60cm braceless ... They use laminated glass at 20 or 25mm. Touch expensive, but look superb

 

[Dogtemple]

It largely depends on the depth, up to about 30cm you can get away with 4mm safely.

I built a 50x50x31cm tank (documented on here somewhere) from 4mm glass and it’s all good. Tiny bit of bow to the glass but not much. It was previously 41cm tall and bowed about 5mm. Hence making it smaller.

I may rebuild this tank from 6mm glass to totally eliminate any bowing.

There are online calculators which tell you all the details of a tank and the given size within a specific safety limit. Worth a play around to see what works for you.

The tank in the picture above I suspect is around 8mm.

 

[mort]

I've got a 60x45x45 and it 8mm, you can go a little bigger and still use that thickness. Anything aproaching 60cm high generally moves to 10mm.

 

[castle]

Silicone has come a long way, these days it’s strong enough to hold many times the pressure. It’s glass thickness that’s the worry.

That said, and I have said this before. The “monster” tank is getting a metal frame. The amount of pressure in large aquariums is far to scary to not take some precautions for.