• Looking to buy a cephalopod? Check out Tomh's Cephs Forum, and this post in particular shares important info about our policies as it relates to responsible ceph-keeping.

Anyone Ever Build A Tank?

Keith

Vampyroteuthis
Registered
Joined
Jun 5, 2008
Messages
406
Anyone ever build a glass tank? I'd like to get another large tank, but I want something with kind of unconventional measurements. Anyone know of any sites with a tutorial or whatnot? And what would I bond it with? How thick would I make the glass? Lots of questions, but yea, anyone know anything about it?
 
It actually costs more to build one yourself than have a custom tank made, unless you know someone who wholesales acrylic and glass.

Yes, I used to build my own, until I found out that having them made for me was actually about 8% less, and I didn't have to do the work.

Try a good local fish store, or you can go nationwide and buy from some of the bigger custom tank builders. We have one of the world's largest here in Tempe.

http://tenecor.com/
 
Tencor is awesome. I've actually been looking at their stuff for a while. My other main interest was glasscages.com. But they're about as far away in the US as you can get. And they charge a LOT for shipping. Sometimes more than the aquarium cost.
 
I had a custom tank built by GlassCages.com, with mixed results, but overall very positive. And for me the shipping was CHEAP. They have two types of shipping: direct to you (expensive) or Group shipping to a major city "near you". I got my 70 gallon glass tank (3/8" glass - HEAVY) shipped to Los Angles for $50. All their Southern California customers had to show up at a specified time and place to pick their tanks up from a delivery truck, but depending on how close the nearest drop off point is, shipping might be cheap.

The downsides I had working with GlassCages was that the people in charge there are a little emotionally unstable, and seem to have a chip on their shoulder. The price was great, but I had to act humble and appologetic just to get them to build my tank at all (strange). I still recommend them, because of the price, but if you don't speak to them as if they are doing you a big favor by selling you a tank, they may refuse to work with you.
 
I should add a note about the quality of GlassCages tanks. I would say that their shooting for a very solid tank, at a very low price. They are NOT all about super high-end appearance. They build things that are really solid, but no perfectly finished. If GlassCages built cars, they would build Ford F150 pickups, not BMW's. For example, the glass on my tank is 3/8" thick, which I think is thicker than it needed to be, and I had them use low-iron starphire glass for the front, for which they only charged me an extra $40 or so. However, the black plastic frame on the top and bottom of my tank is not very attractive, and the tank is about 1/8" narrower than the frame, so that the frame isn't perfectly straight, but instead bows in toward the glass in the middle by about 1/8". Everything still works, and is a little over built, but not fancy, and not perfect. But the priced was about half of anything else I could find. I looked at Tenecor's web site, and it looked like they do custom tanks for people with LOTS of money. GlassCages.com gives prices for many standard tank sizes on their web site, and lets you select options and get a price right there on the site (like buying a computer from Dell). I also built my own stand, but in hindsight I should have bought one of theirs. I saw some that others had bought when I went to pick up my tank, and they were super solid, and I paid more for materials than their stand would have cost built and delivered. Check it out, but remember that the people are touchy.

Also, the overflow they made for me had 1/8" slits about an inch apart. They weren't all exactly the same distance apart, and I could tell that they just slapped the piece of black acrylic down on a table saw and cut the slits free hand. The slits didn't allow nearly enough water pass to keep up with my return pump (only 450 gph for a 60 gallon tank) and I had to use my own table saw to cut two slits for every one that they had cut. If money is no object, go with someone else, but for the money, GlassCages is worth the potential hassle.
 
Huh. I might still think about going through them. The only thing is, I live in the Sacramento area. Northern California. It would SUCK to go pick up that tank. And unfortunately they dont have a group-ship deal to San Francisco.
 
The schedule they show is only for october and november, which makes me wonder if they sometimes go to northern California, but not untill they have enough orders for that area to make it worth while. You might want to call them and ask if the ever head up that way.
 

Shop Amazon

Shop Amazon
Shop Amazon; support TONMO!
Shop Amazon
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Back
Top