Path: utzoo!hoptoad!ptsfa!pyramid!decwrl!ucbvax!jade!ig!uwmcsd1!marque!gryphon!richard
From: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton)
Newsgroups: alt.aquaria
Subject: Re: all-glass tanks?
Message-ID: <2008@gryphon.CTS.COM>
Date: 30 Dec 87 06:12:39 GMT
References: <193@bacchus.DEC.COM> <194@bacchus.DEC.COM> <7163@pur-ee.UUCP>
Reply-To: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton)
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 57

>In article <194@bacchus.DEC.COM> reid@decwrl.UUCP (Brian Reid) writes:
>
>>More pesky questions. I've been reading a lot about the wonders of all-glass
>tanks. Does "all glass" mean that the tank is made of 5 pieces of glass glued
>together with silicone, or does "All glass" mean that the tank is really and
>truly all glass, and that even the seams/bends are glass? If it means the
>latter (even the seams being glass) then where on earth could a person buy
>such a tank? I've never even *seen* one, and I've been to a lot of aquarium
>stores.

(Disaster struck. Computers and boats and xmas parties don't mix. All
is lost, Possible lawsuits. The Universe is corrupt. I don't know if
this got answered)

There are three types of aquariums: 1) The Metal framed type which used
iror or stainless steel frame, and set glass in black mastic cement.
The bottom was sometimes slate, while the four side panels were glass.
This type of tank was fine for freshwater for a while, although since
the black mastic cement was not real swift stuff, either moving
the tank caused the glass to seat funny and leak, or after
a long period of time the cement actually hardened and occasionally
eroded and leaked. When this happened you had to heat up the mastic,
remove the glass, remove the old mastic, apply new mastic, reseat the
glass. Lighting black candles and sacrificing a goat sometimes
helped to prevent leaks. Nothing else seemed to work.
These tanks, mercifully, seem to be extinct. They died in the
seventies,

2) The all glass tank. This is, as you have guessed, five pieces of
glass held together with silicone cement. Robert P.L. Straugn (deceased)
is credited with inventing this. Try to find his book "The salt water
aquarium in the home". He is to marine aquari* what Dennis Ritchie is
to programming :-) I *think* he did this in the early sixties. In the
early seventies it was about 1/2 and 1/2 metal framed and all glass
tanks.

3) Plexiglass tanks. Tanks made from acrylic seemed to appear about
half way through the seventies, and are now very popular.

           GLASS                         ACRYLIC

Pros:      Cheaper                     Good thermal insulator
           Scratch resistant           Better optical properties
           Easy to fix one panel       Lighter
           Easier to find glass than
           acrylic
           Doesnt 'bow'. 
           Good bargins in used tanks

Cons:      Shatters.                   Expensive.


All-glass is also a (tm) of some company. 
  
-- 
    Its too dark to put my keys in Santa Fe, or something like that. 
                          richard@gryphon.CTS.COM