Center brace removal?

[Octopus_Reef]

I have a 300 gallon tank (reef) And it is old school glass. The problem is that the center brace is glass also but it is about 16 inches wide and is 4 peices thick pyramiding (is that a word?LOL) up to the top of the tank totaling 1 1/2 inches thick!! The reason I bring this up is that even my 400 watt halides can't get through it, and being as it is in the middle of the tank I can't get any acro's/light loving corals to grow there very well. So can it be removed/replaced WITHOUT draining the tank or having the tank blow out when I remove the glass peices? Or should I just remove a couple of the peices for better light penatration? Any help/ suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Here is a couple pic's to help you out.
One from the bottom looking up, One from the top looking down and one looking at the front of the tank (Notice in this one how much dimmer the middle of the tank is) Keep in mind this tank has 1640 watts of light.

 

[Octopus_Reef]

Well, seeing as how I put up a double of one pic and can't figure out how to replace it, here it the "front" view of the tank.

 

[fishfreek]

From the looking down photo I would say you could clean the top of that brace some to increase the light transparency of the glass. Also it might be possible to thin the brace down but I would hesitate to do anything with the brace as ths is what gives the center of the front and back its stablity and keeps it from bowing out significantly.

I had the plastic brace on my 45 gal tank break and the center and back would bow out a total of approx 1 - 1.5" due to the pressure of teh water. I have heard simular stories from people with larger tanks who removed the center brace due to the shadowing effect.

If you do try to remove the brace and put something back in its place for support you should drain the tank at least 1/2 way to reduce the overall stress on the glass.