When building a fish tank, it’s important to understand a few key elements. The glass we provide as fish tank aquarium glass is 6mm clear toughened / tempered glass. This is strong and durable for a decent-sized fish tank and can hold the weight of the water. Some tank builders use non-toughened glass because they want to drill holes into the glass after the tank has been built. However, once a piece of glass has been toughened, it cannot be drilled or cut. If you attempt to do this, the glass may shatter. We can cut and drill holes if needed, but we would need to know this before the glass is toughened.
The type of glass used is float toughened glass, which has a green tint on the edges. There is also a type of glass with no green tint called low-iron glass, but this is more expensive. We stock and cut both types in toughened glass.
Silicone joins the pieces of glass together, and this is the most difficult and important part of the build. You will need to use silicone that is aquarium-safe. We also stock this too.
The glass side panels sit on top of the base glass rather than on the sides. This is important to know, as some panels need to compensate for the glass thickness at the edges.
For example, below is a bird’s-eye view of the glass laid out before it is joined together. You may notice that the left and right smaller panels have been reduced by 6mm. This is to allow for the larger panels along the length of the tank. The glass panels labelled 1, 2, and bottom are the same size. Panels 1 and 2 are siliconed and connect to the edge of the glass, rather than sitting on top like the smaller side panels.
You should use masking tape on the glass pieces to ensure everything stays in place correctly. See the example below.
Once you have pieced your tank together, there may be excess silicone on the glass. You can remove this using a knife or wire wool. A wire wool tear-off can be pressed onto the glass and used in a circular motion to remove excess silicone. This should be done after the silicone has dried for 24 hours.
Below are YouTube videos that we recommend watching: