Aquarium frames/remove glass from aquariums

[Sam_Peanuts]

Does anyone know where to buy(assuming it's sold separately somewhere) the frame that holds the glass of the aquariums we see in pet stores? I looked a bit on the internet but never managed to find any.

Also, did anyone ever tried to remove one of the glass pane from those aquariums and replace it with acrylic?

I'm trying to think of an easy way of making enclosures for my multiple arboreal tarantula and be able to provide cross ventilation which is a problem with glass enclosures.

The frames on those aquarium makes it very easy to align the pieces which is not a very easy(for me at least) thing to do without one, they also prevent the bottom from being scratched when you move the enclosure and if I can mix glass with acrylic, it will likely keep the cost lower than making a full acrylic enclosure.

The easiest way to do this I could think of was to remove the bottom part or an aquarium and replace it with acrylic, but I'm not sure if it's possible to easily glue the acrylic piece there without having to remove all of the silicone and redo the whole aquarium so I was wondering if anyone tried this before.
There's also the option of gluing the acrylic on the exterior(assuming the aquarium design allow this) instead of the interior where the glass was but that would leave a gap and the remaining glass may not hold well anymore.

 

[viper69]

You'd be better off building your own acrylic container than dealing w/the glass as you mentioned.

 

[916]

Glasscages.com has a bunch of aquarium and terrarium frames

 

[916]

try it I did, use your imagination

 

[Sam_Peanuts]

You'd be better off building your own acrylic container than dealing w/the glass as you mentioned.

Yes, but a hybrid glass and acrylic contained would be much easier and cheaper to make, assuming it works well and all I'd have to do is remove one piece of glass which is easy enough to deal with. Building an acrylic container from scratch is pretty time consuming and not an easy task to have it straight.

Glasscages.com has a bunch of aquarium and terrarium frames

Thanks. I'll have to ask them how much shipping to canada is though, it might not be worth it at 6-8$ per enclosure + shipping

try it I did, use your imagination

I'll try it for sure, but if someone else tried it first, I'd love to hear about their experience in case there's something I didn't think about that could make my job easier.

 

[viper69]

Yes, but a hybrid glass and acrylic contained would be much easier and cheaper to make, assuming it works well and all I'd have to do is remove one piece of glass which is easy enough to deal with. Building an acrylic container from scratch is pretty time consuming and not an easy task to have it straight.

Thanks. I'll have to ask them how much shipping to canada is though, it might not be worth it at 6-8$ per enclosure + shipping

I'll try it for sure, but if someone else tried it first, I'd love to hear about their experience in case there's something I didn't think about that could make my job easier.

You could be right as I haven't done the number crunching on cost. If you make one, a step by step video or pictures w/instructions would be very helpful as many are looking for a good container design.

So what would you do for a container design if you go w/this hybrid? I don't mean in the cage interior for the T.

 

[Sam_Peanuts]

It's fairly simple, you start with a rectangular aquarium, you remove the bottom glass pane(either by removing all or part of the silicon or smashing it and pulling the pieces or some other way I haven't thought of) which leaves you with 4 glass sides and 2 open sides opposite to each others.
Then you glue(with aquarium safe silicone) a piece of acrylic(with ventilation holes) on one of the open side and you make a door(1 small glued piece to which you connect a bigger one to it with hinges and add some kind of lock. A third glued piece to hold the other part of the lock is optional, depending on the design) with ventilation holes on the other open side.

You're then left with front to back cross ventilation once you flip the aquarium on its side. It's basically the same as the old school way of using an aquarium for arboreals, but you replace the back of it with a ventilated piece of acrylic.

 

[viper69]

AH I see now. That makes sense. I'm always looking for a good container or conversion idea.

 

[The Snark]

You're then left with front to back cross ventilation once you flip the aquarium on its side. It's basically the same as the old school way of using an aquarium for arboreals, but you replace the back of it with a ventilated piece of acrylic.

Neat trick.

 

[Belegnole]

Why not just drill some holes in the existing glass? While I know it may be more time consuming, you could have an all glass tank instead of plastic and glass.

 

[Sam_Peanuts]

The chances of the glass cracking are pretty high if you drill a lot of small holes which is my preferred method for ventilation since I don't trust the vents you often see. And that's assuming the glass on the aquarium is drill-able which is not always the case.

 

[Belegnole]

I've done it once in the past with a thicker bottomed tank. It wasn't too bad with decent diamond bits. But you're right, the smaller tanks used for T's could crack during drilling.

I guess I just try to avoid any sort of plastic when creating a display tank.

 

[Sam_Peanuts]

It took me a while due to the silicone I always used apparently not being sold anymore and lack of time mixed with laziness, but I'm almost done with the prototype so I thought I'd post a picture:


The protective film is still on the acrylic since I'm waiting until it's ready to be siliconed(I glued it with epoxy first since silicone doesn't hold great on acrylic) to remove it so the final result will actually be transparent and won't have any pen lines on it.

The removal of the bottom pane didn't go as well as I had hoped(I had to break it, sending tiny glass shards flying everywhere even though I was trying to be careful), but next time might be easier now that I know the side aren't resting on it, it's just extremely well glued on since there's silicone over, on the sides and under it so I may be able to remove it properly.

I'll make a howto video for the next one I make.

 

[BorisTheSpider]

Nicely done . Must be huge savings over the "name brand" arboreal enclosures .

 

[Sam_Peanuts]

Yeah, especially at this size(10 gal). It would be even more if we had a 1$ per gallon sale like some places in the US since the cheapest I can get nowadays are around 30$ before the mod. I haven't calculated the total cost yet, but I plan to for the next two I have to make. It's probably in the 20-30$ range for all the extra material.

I had a cheaper locking mechanism and a different handle in mind when I started planning this, but when I saw the one I used in the picture and realized it would fit really well with a handle of this type which is really cheap, I gave it a go and I'm quite pleased with it when I tested it a bit. It's really easy to open and lock properly even with only one hand. It even pushes it against the frame so it makes it really difficult to push it from the inside which is something I was a bit worried about having only one lock in the middle(I had 2 escapes when having only a middle lock in the past).