Hood Weight

[Seige]

How much hood weight can the walls of a standard 55g glass tank support?

I'm building a custom hood that will rest on top of the walls of the tank.

[CharlotteSteve]

Well glass has a tensile strength of ~50 MPa or 50,000,000 N/m^2. The contact area of glass you are placing this hood on is approx. .3098 m^2. So multiply those and you get 15,490,000N or 15,490,000 (kg m)/s^2. divide by 9.8 m/s^2 (gravity) and multiply by 2.2046 to convert to lbs. adn you get 3,484,617.76 lbs or a lot more than you can put on there. This makes sense because glass has a tensile strength that is ~3x that of marble!! Remember this is compressive force straight down. I imagine if you put this kind of weight on top of the tank it would fold like a tower of cards. The formula to figure out how much weight will cause this is very long and extensive.

[Poseidon]

WOW! THat is a great post Steve. I knew that glass was strong, but that is CRAZY!

I would keep the hood weight as light as possible, as you will need to remove it frequently for maintenance.

[Seige]

wow that's a lot. Hope that's right. If a tornado hits I'm hiding under the reef tank.

[Seige]

Thanks Poseidon, ya we found some light wood and framing with 1x2's.

No doors. Access for feeding and cleaning will be by lifting the entire front panel. If I need to I'll be able to remove the top panel. I can also remove the side panel if I need to exchange either of the lighting units.

Still not sure what to use to keep the jumper in though.

[CharlotteSteve]

I would put screen on the ports rather than across the tank. Seems to me that salt creep would be a major issue with the screen across the tank, plus it will act like sunglasses and limit your light. I had a blenny jump out of a 1-1/4" circular hole through a 2x4, must have taken him a few shots.

[Poseidon]

Do a screen like this:


You can get the frames from Home Depot or Lowes, and the screen comes from a friend of mine, he goes by "JimsFlies" if you google it, I am sure it will come up.

[Seige]

You can get the frames from Home Depot or Lowes, and the screen comes from a friend of mine, he goes by "JimsFlies" if you google it, I am sure it will come up.

Thanks. It looks like it's roughly 1/4" netting.

[Poseidon]

Yup, sure is. The frames are just window screen style, with the corners plastic. It is SUPER easy to install, just get the roller tool and the push in ribbed string stuff to secure it in the frame. The whole project took 15 minutes or so....

[Seige]

Yup, sure is. The frames are just window screen style, with the corners plastic. It is SUPER easy to install, just get the roller tool and the push in ribbed string stuff to secure it in the frame. The whole project took 15 minutes or so....

Thanks Mike

[Seige]

Looks like I'll have to make 4. ;-) Tank has a divider and with my new hoodie for the tank parts will be blocked most of the time. I'll need to create a port or something on each side for easy access / feeding.

I better figure this part out before I complete the hood.

[kronos5]

The strength of glass is amazing