What thickness of acrylic?

[Marella]

I have been thinking of building my own 90g tank out of acrylic with the following dimensions: 48" long X 18" wide X 24" deep. I just don't know what thickness I need to use.

Thanks in advance.

Branko

[Fly Guy]

I dont know for a tank, i know after cracking 2 sumps by leaning on them too hard i wont build my sumps out of anything but 1/2". I would think that would be a minimum for a tank. Sorry, thats really not EXACTLY the answer your looking for but hopefully it will bump this up and someone will chime in.

[Marella]

Thanks Fly Guy, appreciate the input. Someone told me that I could get away with 1/4" Lucite for a tank but that seemed a bit flimsy. Sounds like I should use 1/2" as a minimum thickness.

[Geoff]

1/4" would hold the water, but there would be significant bowing in the tank. it would look more like a ball than an a box.

acrylic is a lot more flexible than glass, so it needs to be thicker in order to keep the bowing to a minimum, even though thinner would physically be strong enough.

G~

[Bytestalker]

Here is the correct way to calculate the correct thickness.
Remember to use a cast acrylic. This is the site for Cyro an excellent quality cast acrylic and their calculator.

http://cyro.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/cyro.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_sid=cZn9kfhg&p_lva=&p_faqid=133&p_created=979155189&p_sp=cF9ncmlkc29ydD0mcF9yb3dfY250PTY3OSZwX3BhZ2U9M Q**&p_li=