Your Opinions...

[Fish Lips]

Hi All!

I was at the LFS today, and came across an Oceanic 75gal. aquarium with pine stand (with cupboards)

Anyway, the staffer told me that the tanks glass was not tempered, that's why its only 499(cdn) to me thats a great price.

Does tempered make a big difference? what are the chances of the tank cracking? Does anyone have an oceanic tank? Should I opt for the 50gal tempered tank for 50$ less? Anyone?

Thanks,
Fish Lips.

 

[targaboy78]

Hi there Fish Lips,

I don't know anything about tempered glass, but I've seen some tanks that have regular glass on the 4 sides and tempered glass on the bottom.

On an unrelated topic...
Have you thought about looking for tanks in the Buy and Sell newspaper?

www.buysell.com only covers western Canada but I think the easter part of the country should have a website.

Here in Vancouver, I can often tanks for $1 / gallon.
(75g for $75, and 100g for $100)

Just a thought.

 

[Fish Lips]

I've looked around here for a used tank, but cant find anyone parting with a good sized tank thats in good shape.

Thanks for the suggestion though!

 

[nejsux]

OK! Finally something I REALLY know about. (I'm a construction manager so I deal with a lot of window/glass manufacturers and knowing their lingo is a neccessit) Anyway, tempering really does give the glass a lot of extra strength. I'm not saying an untempered glass will just bust, but I personally wouldnt trust it. Even ALL manufactured window glass has to be tempered by building code.

Tempered glass is generally 4x the strangth of regular glass. But it also depends how thick the glass is. I'm honestly surprised that they even make that large a tank untempered. A gallon of water weighs 8.33 pounds, so 75 gallons of water is about 625 pounds! Thats without substrate.

I'm going to try to explain tempered glass now:
Regular glass is annealed glass, meaning the molten glass has been cooled under controlled conditions to avoid thermal stresses (which may lead to cracks/breakage) , but this process isn't always successful.

When manufacturing tempered glass, they cut regular glass and reheat it to almost molten state. Then they blast air onto both sides and cool the outsides quickly while the inside core cools much more slowly. This creates permanent compressive stresses in the edges of the glass and tensile stresses in the middle. In other words, the outside is being puched in towards itself and the inside is being streched out. So it sort of supports itself from the inside out.

I probably just made everyone really confused unless you remember physics. But tempered glass is much much stronger

 

[nejsux]

Oops -> Forgot to mention, those of you with tempered glass tanks, cutting or drilling into glass thats already been tempered will release all the stresses in the glass and the glass will be more fragile than regular glass. According to manufacturers, it "disintegrates." Or sort of caves in on itself. The cutting has to be done before the regular glass is reheated. So watch out if your drilling holes yourself or getting them drilled in your tank.

 

[Fish Lips]

Wow! Thanks for the info!

I was worried a little as well about the size of the tank and the weight of everything with regular glass....I have sent an email to the mfg. hoping to get some piece of mind..I figure 500cdn (299US) for 75 gallon, with lights and glass top with Pine stand is a pretty good deal!

 

[fishfreek]

Oceanic is a very well respected tank company. They have a 5 year warrantee on all their tanks. You can see the warranty info below.

http://www.oceanicsystems.com/products_warranty.html

I looked but could not get verification about their tanks being tempered or not but I do know that all glass aquarium company makes many of their larger tanks out of std glass for the sides and tempered for the bottom.

Personally I would buy the tank with out hesitation.

 

[Fish Lips]

After a bit of e-search, I found that the tanks name is the "Nature's View" Alot of people have them and they go as high as 125 gallons. Anyway, Im taking your advice FishFreek!!
Im stopping in on the weekend and putting my $$ down!

Now for another Question, can anyone recommend a good filter, heater and anything else I may need for a tank this size? (Im going from a 10gal walmart special to this!!)

It's going to be quite an exciting couple of weeks!

 

[Guest]

I figure 500cdn (299US) for 75 gallon, with lights and glass top with Pine stand is a pretty good deal!

That is a good sounding deal, almost too good. Was it one of the PJs Christmas specials, by any chance? I'm in the Toronto area and always on the lookout for new equipment/deals.

http://www.buysellzone.com always has tanks listed for sale in the GTA.

 

[Guest]

Nej,

Thanks for the explanation about tempered glass. I always wondered what the diff. was, but never bothered to research it. My All Glass tank has tempered on the bottom, regular on the sides, came with a sticker on the bottom, DO Not Drill! As I had no plan to drill the tank, I didn't give it much more thought.

Everybody brings something to the table here!

 

[Fish Lips]

sorry for the delay with the reply stargurl....The tank&stand are sold at Super Pet. Im sure there is one in your area.

 

[Guest]

sorry for the delay with the reply stargurl....The tank&stand are sold at Super Pet. Im sure there is one in your area.

Yes, there are two Super Pet locations near me. PJs and Super Pet are owned by the same company, anyway.

Guess who they're owned by.... Hagen.

 

[Hara]

Oceanic does make Natureview, it is just their lower line of products.