Moving the brace on my tank??

[roryb24]

i have a 100gal 60in long tank and it has a center brace that will get in the way of my lighting system and cause a shadow.i was wondering if i could remove the brace and then rebrace it at 20in and 40in i was planning on useing .25in glass or acrylic for the braces. any thoughts or suggestions let me know.

oh yeah the tank is not set up yet its still empty so its bearing no load right now.

 

[roryb24]

???

 

[roryb24]

Bump
Anyone know if this would work or heard of anyone doing it?

 

[Ace25]

I am assuming the center brace is a glass brace? If so, it is possible, just make sure you use the correct thickness of glass and correct adhesive for the new braces, and of course the tank is empty when doing this, or else the second you remove the center brace you risk the tank bowing/breaking.

 

[Steelerfan747]

I have seen the plastic center brace replaced with a glass one before but never moved over. I would think that it could be done but would recommend if you don't get an exact answer from someone on the site that you try contacting glass manufacturers like Reefsavvy (one of the supporting vendors on this site) They should be able to give you a definitive answer.

 

[roryb24]

Yeah the tank isn't set up yet so the glass has no pressure on it but I wanted to remove the plastic black center brace for 2 glass braces

 

[Ace25]

Why not just replace the black plastic with a glass one in the same spot? Glass does reduce the light a little (about 100 PAR from my testing), but it is better than a shadow. The glass brace has to be quite a bit larger than the plastic brace though. On my 60G I have a 6" center glass brace instead of the plastic one.

But first.. looking back.. I don't see this mentioned, is the tank a glass tank or an acrylic tank? That is very important because you can't use acrylic to brace glass or glass to brace acrylic, they use 2 different types of adhesives.

 

[roryb24]

It's a glass 100gal 60in long tank with the black plastic brace but I was wanting to cut the plastic black brace out and use glass to replace it.

 

[roryb24]

I could always replace it in the same spot but thought if I braced it at 20in and 40in that would work as well.

 

[Ace25]

I have no doubt it will work, I have seen many tanks braced like you want. My LFS had a 400G 8' tank that had braces at 1/3 and 2/3 instead of 1/2. The only thing I can't give an exact answer on is what width and thickness the glass braces would need to be in order to be structurally sound. This is an area you don't want to guess on, so getting an answer from a professional builder would be my suggestion.

 

[roryb24]

Sounds like good advice to me I was just gonna go with .25 in glass
Braces at 2in wide but you make a good point of not guessing and getting a professionals opion.

 

[roryb24]

Anyone know of what size braces I should use?