Home aquarium keeping is a fascinating activity. Such pets do not require much space or attention, and watching swimming fish is a very pleasant and relaxing activity. An important issue will be the arrangement of cozy housing, which will have all the necessary equipment. Our article will tell you how to make an aquarium yourself and what materials are used for this.

How to make an aquarium with your own hands: necessary materials

There are many models of ready-made aquariums available for sale, but a large selection does not always mean that you can find an option that suits your wishes and capabilities. If you plan to make an aquarium yourself, you need to prepare all the necessary tools and materials in advance.

What you will need:

  • Glass or plexiglass of suitable thickness.
  • Glass cutter
  • Measuring tool.
  • Silicone for aquariums and a gun for applying it.
  • Masking tape.
  • Small spatula.

Additionally, you need to prepare a rag for wiping glass, a sharp knife and a building level. It is advisable to carry out all work on a flat, durable surface suitable for the size of the future aquarium.

Particular attention should be paid to the choice of adhesive composition. It is preferable to use special silicone for aquariums.

In addition to increased strength and moisture resistance, it has a safe chemical composition. Conventional sealants are not intended for such work, because the chemicals in the composition can cause the death of fish.

Making a beautiful aquarium yourself

The whole process begins with determining the size of the future aquarium.

The thickness of the glass must correspond to its size, otherwise the structure will be fragile.

Models of relatively small displacement are usually made from plexiglass. It is preferable to purchase special tempered glass, be sure to check it for defects. When filling the container with water and turning on the backlight, any unevenness and air voids in the glass will be especially noticeable. In addition, defects negatively affect the strength of the structure, but there will be a serious load on the walls and bottom.

How to make an aquarium with your own hands:

  1. You can cut glass yourself, but it is much easier to order this service separately when purchasing the material. This way the cuts will be smoother and neater, which will make the work easier.
  2. When calculating the glass dimensions, it is necessary to take into account the method of fastening the side walls. There are only two of them: the walls rest on the bottom, or the walls are located around it. In the first option, the width of the side walls must be reduced by two thickness sizes. The second involves adding this value to the dimensions.
  3. The edges of the glass must be sanded. This can also be done at a workshop that offers glass cutting services. At home, you need to prepare a sufficiently large container with water and a sharpening stone. The work is carried out under water, the glass is installed on the fabric to prevent chipping of the edges and corners.
  4. The ends to be glued must be thoroughly dried and degreased with alcohol or acetone.
  5. The bottom of the aquarium is placed on a solid base (table or workbench). It should be borne in mind that in this position the finished product will dry for at least three days, so the assembled aquarium should not interfere with everyday activities.
  6. To make the seams look neater, and to avoid having to scrape off excess sealant from the glass, you need to insulate the edges with masking tape, retreating 5-6 mm on each side.
  7. It is necessary to apply sealant to the end of the front wall in an even layer, the thickness of which is approximately ⅔ of the thickness of the glass. It is more convenient to do this with a special device - the so-called pistol. It is more convenient to process a small aquarium with walls up to 4 centimeters using a large (40 ml) syringe.
  8. If the walls will be located around the bottom, the sealant is applied to the ends of the bottom glass.
  9. We apply the front part to the bottom, there is no need to press the glass hard, there should be a small gap between the walls. Carefully level the protruding sealant with a spatula to the width of the seam.
  10. For beginners, it is preferable to use a transparent sealant - this way the seams will be almost invisible. Black sealant looks best, especially for large structures. At the same time, the slightest irregularities will be noticeable on such a seam, so without proper application experience, it is better to refuse such material. There is also a white sealant available, but it may turn yellow over time. In addition, designs with white seams are more difficult to fit organically into the interior.
  11. The installation of the walls begins with the front part, then the ends are installed and, lastly, the backdrop. For convenience, you can provide wooden supports or special clamps for fastening glass. You can also fasten the glass together with masking tape, which can be easily removed later.
  12. The location of the walls is controlled using a building level. It will no longer be possible to correct the flaws after the adhesive has dried, so we check the angles and slope of the walls immediately.
  13. The final stage is to remove excess silicone with a soft, damp sponge (with a knife if the glue has hardened). It is better to remove the tape the next day after applying the glue, and the aquarium itself should stand for at least three days without water for the final polymerization of the sealant.

After three days, the product is checked for tightness. If a leak is detected, the water must be drained, the leakage areas must be dried and degreased. After this, the seams are once again sealed using the already described algorithm and left to dry.

How to make a large aquarium with your own hands

Large aquariums look especially advantageous. If the area of ​​your home allows you to place an aquarium with a large displacement, you must also take into account the features of making it yourself. Our tips will tell you how to make a large aquarium with your own hands.

How to make a large aquarium correctly:

  • It is first necessary to calculate the thickness of the glass in accordance with the displacement. The table below will help determine this parameter.
  • Additional strength will be provided by a frame made of a metal corner. The gaps between glass and metal are treated with sealant.
  • Stiffening ribs and ties will provide additional strength to the structure. These are long strips of glass glued at their ends to the front and rear walls (stiffening ribs), as well as across them (ties). Reinforcement is necessary for containers over 50 liters. The main rule: the higher the aquarium, the more ties need to be provided.
  • For containers with a displacement of over 500 liters, stiffening ribs are also made at the bottom.
  • Ensuring the strength of the structure is also achieved due to the double bottom. In this case, the top part should be smaller than the bottom by exactly the thickness of the side walls plus a margin for the seam.

It should be noted that with increased glass thickness it is necessary to allow the sealant to cure for about a week.

The adhesive composition is applied to the bottom in several passes, between which a drying time of 3-4 days is maintained. Usually the following formula is taken into account: 1-1.5 mm of sealant is polymerized per day. It is also necessary to wait an additional couple of days for the composition to completely harden.

How to make an aquarium with your own hands at home video

The video below will help you understand the features and nuances in more detail, and also see clearly how to make your own aquarium at home. It shows a step-by-step algorithm of work, the process of applying sealant, as well as the finished result. Inspired by this example, you can safely start making your own aquarium.

How to make a saltwater aquarium

Making an aquarium with your own hands makes it possible to turn extraordinary ideas into reality. This way you can make a beautiful aquarium for exotic inhabitants. The main difference is the large displacement and specialized equipment. The volume must be 200 liters or more so that the ecosystem can develop and function.

Necessary equipment:

  • External filter with filler. This can be charcoal, sponge and ceramic chips.
  • A skimmer is a special device for removing foam.
  • The pompofilter oxygenates the water and helps remove waste.
  • Thermostat.
  • A hydrometer that determines the density of a liquid.
  • Ultraviolet lamp.
  • Separate container for preparing sea water.
  • Filter consumables, salt supply, bacterial preparations, acidity tests.

Before relocating the inhabitants, it is necessary to prepare and settle the water and populate it with microorganisms necessary for the health of the fish.

The aquarium should remain uninhabited for a couple of weeks so that a suitable environment can form inside. Starting a marine aquarium is much more difficult than usual, and maintaining it at first will also bring a lot of trouble. At the same time, if everything is done correctly, an established mini-ecosystem will function with minimal outside interference.

A homemade aquarium will fit perfectly into the interior and will become a source of special pride for the owner. A little patience and the advice from our article will help you make a beautiful and reliable “fish house” of a suitable size yourself.

Nowadays, building an aquarium with your own hands at home is a fairly simple task thanks to modern materials and sealants. It will take a little skill, moderate financial costs and, of course, desire. As a rule, making an aquarium yourself will be cheaper than buying it.

Step No. 1. Defining goals

First of all, you need to decide for what purpose it is being created: turtles, iguanas and other reptiles will live in it, or it will be an aquarium with fish. Depending on this, the size of the tank and the thickness of the glass are calculated.

Remember, a large aquarium has significant weight (200 liters of water = 200 kg of weight), a weak structure may simply not withstand it.

Step No. 2. Selecting glass

Several materials are used to build an aquarium, each of which has its own advantages and disadvantages.
Plexiglas- easy to process, flexible, so you can create various shapes with curved surfaces. Disadvantages include low strength under high pressure. It is better not to make a tank of more than 100 liters from it. In addition, when exposed to certain substances, plexiglass becomes cloudy.
Acrylic- is both strong and flexible, large aquariums of various shapes are made from it. However, the service life of acrylic glass is lower than that of glass, and just like plexiglass, it is easily scratched.
Strained glass- differs in strength and durability. Glass is easy to care for and difficult to scratch, and does not become cloudy over time. Among the disadvantages is the impossibility of creating complex shapes of aquariums, since it does not bend under normal conditions.

Step No. 3. Selecting glass thickness

The walls of an aquarium filled with water are under strong pressure. The greater the volume and height of the walls, the higher the pressure. As general recommendations, the following ratio of height to glass thickness can be used:

  • up to 30 cm - 5 mm
  • 30–60 cm - 10 mm
  • 60–80 cm - 20 mm

Step No. 4. Glass dimensions and necessary tools

Correct glass dimensions are important. If you order cutting, then simply name the desired dimensions and they will produce the necessary elements for you; before acceptance, be sure to check the compatibility of the parts.
If you cut glass yourself, you need to consider the following:

  • The walls are placed directly on the bottom sheet of glass - the future bottom, and are not attached to it from the side. They must stand on it.
  • The walls of the tank are paired (front and rear glass and two side). The front and rear glass are the same length as the bottom glass. The side windows should be shorter than the edge of the bottom glass to which they will be attached.

For example, the width is 30 cm, and the thickness of the glass is 0.5 cm, which means the side glass must be made 29 cm wide.

To build an aquarium you will need: masking tape, a scraper, a scraper blade, soaked paper napkins, scissors, cleaning cloths, aquarium silicone, a silicone gun, cleaning paper and prepared pieces of glass.

Step No. 5. Glass location

On a flat, hard surface, lay out the future fragments of the tank in the correct order. The sheet that will become the bottom is located in the center, and next to each edge there is another sheet of glass corresponding to it.

Step No. 6. Cleaning the surface

Glass should be treated with wipes soaked in alcohol or acetone. Pay special attention to the edges where silicone sealant will be applied. Contamination, and especially dirt particles, will reduce the adhesion of parts and in the future will lead to leakage of the aquarium, in the worst case, to its destruction. The latter scenario may well lead to flooding of the neighbors below.

Step #7: Apply Masking Tape

Before applying aquarium silicone, apply masking tape to the edges of the glass to avoid contamination with silicone. Place the side pieces on the future tank bottom to determine where to cover with masking tape.

Step No. 8. Applying silicone

Assembly is carried out in stages; do not immediately apply aquarium silicone to all edges. Using a gun, squeeze out a thin strip about 3 mm thick for 0.5 cm glass. If you have no practice using such tools, you should first practice squeezing a small amount onto other surfaces, for example, paper. Practice until you get the hang of it.

Step No. 9. Installation of walls

Attach the first glass, press firmly but carefully. The first side glass is unstable, except for the silicone on the bottom edge, it is not secured by anything else, so use support. Place an object close to the first side glass that will hold it, or use the help of a friend/partner.

Step No. 10. Completion of installation

Sequentially attach each subsequent glass, the remaining silicone is removed with a scraper. Once installation is complete, peel off the masking tape and carefully clean the surface if necessary. Complete fixation of silicone depends on the manufacturer; refer to the instructions for use.

Having pet fish in an aquarium is the dream of almost every child and at least half of adults, but not everyone can afford to buy expensive aquariums in stores. In this article we will talk about how to make an aquarium with your own hands from glass. After all, it is a long-known fact that making it yourself will cost less than buying a ready-made one. And if you look into everything in detail, it turns out that, in principle, there is nothing particularly complicated in this process.

Choosing glass

When selecting materials for your future aquarium, do not be lazy and do it with special care, because the right material is a direct path to success. Glass for a fish house must meet aesthetic and functional qualities. This means that before you buy material for work, you should know the following.

Glass type:

  1. For your purposes, only silicate glass is suitable; organic glass is not suitable in this case for a number of reasons. Firstly, plexiglass can release chemicals that have no known effect on the inhabitants of your aquarium. Secondly, the appearance of such material also leaves much to be desired.
  2. In turn, the silicate glass we selected is also divided into 2 types: window and display glass. The first is absolutely unsuitable for our purposes, since it is very fragile, distorts the image, and also has unevenness and roughness. So don't throw your money away! It is better to immediately buy display glass, the quality of which meets our requirements. It costs a little more than a window one, but it will pay for itself more than once during the operation of your product.
  3. Each glass has such a measure as its grade. There are 8 types in total: from M1 to M8. The higher the number, the lower quality the glass. So, M1 represents the highest quality. In order to make an aquarium with your own hands from glass, experts recommend choosing the highest grade. If for some reason it is not available to you, take the quality a little lower, but not below the M3 mark - it is used in extreme cases. All glass with a mark above M3 simply will not withstand the water pressure and will burst.

Important! When choosing glass for an aquarium, carefully examine it from all sides. The surface of the product must be smooth, transparent and without any defects, because even the smallest crack can lead to disastrous results.

Determining the thickness of the glass

If everything is clear with the length, height and width, then the thickness of the glass needs to be determined, remembering school physics. First, you need to determine the volume of the future tank, and then look at the table, which is intended just for such purposes. You can easily find it on the Internet by entering the query into a search engine: table for determining the thickness of glass for an aquarium.

Also, for large aquariums, stiffening ribs are used, and they are also used with ties for even larger aquarium sizes. This is done to increase the strength of the product.

Important! If you do not have experience in cutting glass, it is better to entrust this process to a professional - take the glass to a workshop.

Now that you know how to choose the perfect material for your aquarium, let's talk about how to choose adhesive for your aquarium glass.

Choosing glue

A wide range of all kinds of adhesive solutions are available in construction stores. Before choosing one of them, you should know a few specific points:

  1. The chosen product must completely ensure the tightness and waterproofness of the structure, because no one needs a leaking aquarium.
  2. The second point requires a well-thought-out aquarium design. There are 2 types of adhesives: black and transparent. For beginners, it is recommended to use a transparent one, since an inexperienced hand can smear an even seam, and with black glue this will be noticeable. This will spoil the aesthetic appearance of the product.

Important! The only correct option for gluing aquariums is silicone sealant. There are a number of reasons why this particular aquarium glass adhesive is best to use. Among them:

  • excellent insulation;
  • absence of antibacterial impurities.

The second is especially important, since representatives of the flora and fauna in your product will not be happy with such chemistry in their habitat.

List of the most common adhesives

Answering the question of how to glue a glass aquarium, many experts highlight the following means:

  1. Dow Corning 911 has been the leader in trace adhesives on the market for a long time.
  2. Tytan is in no way inferior to first place, except for one nuance: it has an unpleasant odor that will dissipate over the course of several days.
  3. Soudal Silirub AQ is also a commonly recommended sealant for bonding materials such as glass.
  4. Chemlux 9013 is a German brand of glue that is also in demand among specialists.

Important! When choosing glue, keep in mind that suitable silicone will ensure quality and reliability, and the money saved on cheap and low-quality glue will have to be spent on repairing the same aquarium.

Gluing process

Now that we have chosen the appropriate material and adhesive for the glass of the aquarium, be patient and get to work.

Tools

To do this you will need the following tools:

  1. Soft whetstone.
  2. A 20 cc syringe for applying glue to the surface.
  3. A utility knife or other sharp blade.
  4. Wipes for removing excess glue.
  5. Degreasing agent.

Gluing methods

There are a couple of ways to glue the bottom and walls of the product together:

  1. Directly attaching the walls to the bottom.
  2. Fastening the walls around the bottom.

Both methods are good in their own way, and practically do not differ in the reliability of the design and its appearance. Also, both methods do not differ in gluing technology.

In order to make an aquarium with your own hands from glass using the first method, you need to do the following:

  1. In order to ensure safe working with glass, it is necessary to sharpen the edges of the walls and bottom. This will help avoid careless cuts. To do this, place a terry towel on the bottom of the bathtub - this will save you from scratches on the bathtub, and place the glass on it. Fill up with water. Treat the edges of the glass with the moistened stone that we prepared before starting work. Try not to touch the cut, as this may affect the adhesion of the sealant.
  2. After this procedure, dry the glass and degrease it. Do this procedure with extreme care.
  3. Now we proceed to the most important and difficult stage - fastening the structure. Choose a place where your product can stand for a day. Place newspaper on the surface. The front wall is glued first. To do this, sealant is applied to its end in a neat, even layer, and the part is pressed onto the bottom of the aquarium.
  4. Now the side wall is attached in a similar way, and not only the end of the glass is lubricated, but also its side edge. According to the following scenario, the remaining edges are glued.
  5. Now leave the structure to dry for 24 hours, unless otherwise indicated in the instructions for the glue.
  6. If necessary, after the time has elapsed, stiffening ribs are installed and the aquarium dries for another 24 hours.
  7. After complete drying, the remaining glue is removed from the product using a blade along the surface of the glass.
  8. Next, the aquarium is checked for strength. To do this, fill it with the required amount of water and check for leaks. If such have formed, then it can be eliminated without “disassembling” the structure. To do this, you need to press a little sealant into the leak from the inside of the product.
  9. If unsuccessful, the walls are peeled off, cleaned and the process begins again.

Important! Gluing in the second way follows the same principle.

Making an aquarium from a jar

If you are not sure that you can make an aquarium with your own hands from glass, try making it from an ordinary three-liter jar.

You will need:

  1. Jar or bottle. The product should not be less than 3 liters, and in fact, the more, the better. You can also use a large glass flowerpot.
  2. Priming. You can buy beautiful multi-colored soil for an aquarium in the store. You can also use small pebbles, pebbles and other materials as soil. Before placing them in our aquarium, all elements should be boiled.
  3. Compressor. A necessary thing to provide the fish with oxygen.
  4. For decoration you can use a sea shell.
  5. Fish and plants.

Process of creation

Making an aquarium from a jar is very simple. For this:

  1. Wash the jar thoroughly. No detergents other than baking soda. Pour boiling water over it.
  2. Fill in the prepared soil and install decorative elements.
  3. Fill with water and plant the plants.
  4. Connect the compressor.
  5. Launch the fish.

A few nuances

When you are going to make an aquarium from a jar, consider some of the nuances that a novice aquarist needs to know:

  • The larger the container, the better for you and the fish.
  • Do not use plastic products as an aquarium.
  • If the jar is small, the filter will not fit in it. This means that you must perform its functions by adding fresh water, siphoning the bottom, wiping the jar from the inside.
  • For adding and changing, use only settled water.

This article told you how to make an aquarium with your own hands from glass. At the same time, we examined all the intricacies of creating this product, as well as a specific example of creating the first aquarium from a simple jar. Now you can confidently get fish, because with the help of our useful tips you will not have any difficulties.

The easiest way to have an aquarium at home is to buy a ready-made one or order it from those who professionally manufacture them. But perhaps you have ever thought about how difficult it is to make an aquarium yourself? Or maybe you want to make them professionally yourself? Then this article is for you!

How to make an aquarium at home?

To make an aquarium yourself, you need a lot of patience. And yet there is nothing particularly complicated about it. In this article we will tell you how to make a fairly large aquarium with a capacity of 200 liters. If you follow the instructions exactly, no problems should arise.

First we need, of course, glass. They should be thick enough and durable. You can cut them yourself, or you can order them from a glass workshop. We will need glass of the following sizes:

Front and rear, 1200x400 mm, 2 pcs.

Side, 400x382 mm, 2 pcs.

Bottom, 1182x382, 1 pc.

Base 1, to reinforce the bottom, 1180X50, 2 pcs.

Base 2, to reinforce the bottom, 282Х50, 2 pcs.

Ribs, 1124Х50, 2 pcs.

Screed, 380Х50, 2 pcs.

And the following tools:

Aquarium silicone, 2 pcs.

Masking tape.

Glue gun.

So, let's start making!

1. To begin with, we place the bottom glass on the slats and try on the bases around the perimeter to strengthen the bottom.

2. Then we lubricate the future gluing areas with acetone to degrease the surface.

3. We apply silicone.

4. We apply the bases and press them lightly so that the silicone spreads over the entire surface between the glasses.

5. We wait 1-2 hours until the silicone hardens.

6. During this time, lubricate the side windows with acetone and, stepping back 18-20 mm from the edge (which corresponds to the thickness of the bottom + 2-3 mm), glue a strip of masking tape to each of them.

7. Now slowly apply silicone to the side surface of the bottom and apply the side glass, pressing it lightly. We remove the remaining silicone from the inside by first wetting our hands with soapy water. Remove the masking tape.

8. In the same way we glue the second side glass. To prevent the glass from falling, you should secure it with something on one side and the other.

9. Now you need to wait until all the silicone has completely hardened. This will take approximately 1 day.

10 . After making sure that the side windows are securely attached, we turn the aquarium on its side and try on the front viewing glass.

11. Having stepped back from the edge at a distance equal to the thickness of the glass, plus 2-3 mm, we cover the front glass with masking tape.

12. Remove the front glass and carefully apply a layer of silicone to the side surface of the bottom and side windows.

13 . Glue the front glass. Then we remove the remaining silicone from the inside.

14 . Remove the masking tape.

15. We clean off the remaining silicone from the outside with a knife, but this should be done only after we are sure that it is completely dry.

16. After about 12 hours, you can turn the aquarium over to the other side and glue the back glass, repeating the same procedure.

17. Now we glue the ribs on which the cover slips will be held. Having retreated some distance from the edge of the front and rear glass, glue the tape, then apply silicone and glue the ribs. The distance at which they should be from the edge should correspond to the thickness of the cover slips.

I would like to note that you have completely gone off the rails if you decided on such extravagance as creating a large or, at the very least, lopsided aquarium. Are you disgusted with the banal, flat, rectangular shape? So, to contemplate what is contained in this form, this is what you need! The straighter the plane you're looking at, the less distortion there is. No wonder SONY is bending over backwards trying to create the flattest screen possible. Do you want a panoramic aquarium!.. Or a corner one? This changes things. The polyhedron isn't bad either, so...
Why am I trying to dissuade you! Not from me, but from someone else, you will find a way to glue such cans, glue them together and you will look with disgust at the creation of your hands, especially since it will soon fall apart and you will have to raise money to repair your neighbors’ apartments. So, I’d better give you a hint.

I suggest:

Somehow my muse has gone wild again, I have to pacify it. SO,

First of all, the main difference in making an aquarium of complex shape is... cutting the glass. You will probably have to be present during this process, if possible. Especially if you ordered glass from a company that has nothing to do with aquariums (aquarium specialists still know how to cut and measure glass). It's all about dishonesty, irresponsibility and laziness of glass cutters. Even if you manage to overcome all these vices in them, they will fall into greed.

In short, the problem is that edges that are cut not at right angles to the adjacent ones, but, for example, at an angle of 45" are a little more difficult to cut. Simply, when cutting out octagonal glass, you need to cut off 4 corners from the square. So, the break points These corners don't look as neat as straight cuts.
All these are subtleties of cutting glass, but they can serve you badly if the result is measured by someone who is completely indifferent to the reliability and appearance of your aquarium.

After they cut out the bottom for you, take the trouble to measure it yourself very carefully. When you measure the size, for example, of the front glass in a corner aquarium or, in general, of any glass that makes up obtuse angles in an aquarium, make sure that the gap between adjacent glasses is 1-3 mm.

By the way, a few words about the size and shape of the future aquarium:

If you want a corner aquarium, make it pentagonal rather than triangular, no matter how tempting that may be. Firstly, sharp corners will make cleaning the aquarium difficult, and secondly, you will simply get tired of gluing these corners together, trying to make them reliable and beautiful. So, I advise you to make a corner aquarium of this standard shape:

Well, I think you can figure it out on your own with polyhedra and panoramas. If these words put you into a state of deep thought, then you can take a look here.

Now a little about the rest of the glass that makes up, so to speak, the body of the aquarium.

If we are talking about corner aquarium, then covering the bottom with walls will look like this:

Panoramic The aquarium is glued as follows:

Polyhedron Shouldn't raise any questions at all:

In fact, you can combine the glass in some other way, but the proposed options are simple and reliable, and do not require any special skills in operation.

Well, directly with gluing there are no serious differences from what I already wrote about.
I would like to say a few words about gluing together obtuse angles, for the sake of which, in fact, all this writing was started. The fact is that it is simply impossible to glue, for example, the front glass to a corner aquarium in the usual way. And this is done as follows:

First place the notorious glass against the aquarium, without spreading it with glue, in order to check whether the cracks that are to be filled with glue are even, i.e. future seams. If this is in order, then the glass is smeared with glue at the bottom, put in its place and pressed on top with something like a rack with a weight, placing one end of it on this very flimsy front glass, and the other “hooking” on some back a wall that is already quite rigid due to the viscosity of the glue in the seams holding this back wall.
Now, having convinced yourself of the relative stability and immobility of the front glass, you can take your hands off it and be glad that it is not falling anywhere. Then take the glue gun in your free hands and fill the seams with glue from the outside of the aquarium. This should be done starting from the bottom, making sure that the glue fills the seam to its entire thickness, squeezing out into the inside of the aquarium. The final touch is to form the outer surface of the seams. To do this, cut a piece of thick cardboard for each seam and, holding the glass by the top, thereby controlling its movement relative to the adjacent walls, spread glue with the cardboard from top to bottom, making sure that you get a clear boundary between the surface of the seam itself and the excess glue.

Now check whether any glass has moved during such a heavy gluing process, and calmly leave the aquarium to dry.

After the glue has completely dried (this will not happen earlier than in a day, but it’s better to wait longer), you can start cutting off the excess glue. Using the blade of a stationery knife, cut off the external excess produced by you as a result of “shaping the surface of the seam”, and also cut off the glue that has protruded into the aquarium from the corner seams at the root, being careful not to get into the seam itself. After this, the seam should look like this:

Now place the aquarium face down, with the top towards you, moving it slightly so that it hangs slightly off the table. If possible, give the tip of the glue tube a slightly curved shape (this can be done by heating the tip with a lighter), something like this:

Carefully but firmly apply the glue "sausage" to the inside of the corner seams, making sure that the glue overlaps both panes, like this:

Of course, let the glue dry.
In this way you will significantly strengthen these flimsy-looking seams.

But even after this, the front glass will remain more mobile than the rest. Therefore, you can cover your aquarium with all sorts of ribs and ties at your discretion, just to secure the front glass without completely blocking access to the aquarium :-)))
Those. For a corner aquarium you can use this amplification circuit:

The panorama is glued in the same way, with the only difference that it has 3 of these flimsy glasses.
For it you can glue the edges like this:

It is better to glue the polyhedron in several steps. First, glue 3 glasses, hooking the middle one to some stationary object, and glue the two adjacent ones in turn to it as follows:
When the bottom of the glass is already smeared with glue and pressed to the bottom, hold the glass with your fingers along with the middle fixed glass by the upper edge, right at the seam. Now, holding them in place with one hand, fill the corner seam with glue (carefully!). Then shape its surface with cardboard. After this, you can safely let go of your hand - the glass will not go anywhere. Perform a similar operation with the second glass.
The next day it will be easier to glue the remaining glass.

Otherwise, gluing shaped cans is no different from gluing rectangular ones. Such moments as smearing the bottom around the perimeter, spreading vertical seams in right angles with a spatula, cutting glue - everything is the same as with rectangular ones. Strictly speaking, gluing aquariums is not such a difficult thing!

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    THANK YOU so much for the very useful information in the article. Everything is presented very clearly. It feels like a lot of work has been done to analyze the operation of the eBay store

    • Thank you and other regular readers of my blog. Without you, I would not be motivated enough to dedicate much time to maintaining this site. My brain is structured this way: I like to dig deep, systematize scattered data, try things that no one has done before or looked at from this angle. It’s a pity that our compatriots have no time for shopping on eBay because of the crisis in Russia. They buy from Aliexpress from China, since goods there are much cheaper (often at the expense of quality). But online auctions eBay, Amazon, ETSY will easily give the Chinese a head start in the range of branded items, vintage items, handmade items and various ethnic goods.

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        What is valuable in your articles is your personal attitude and analysis of the topic. Don't give up this blog, I come here often. There should be a lot of us like that. Email me I recently received an email with an offer that they would teach me how to trade on Amazon and eBay.

  • It’s also nice that eBay’s attempts to Russify the interface for users from Russia and the CIS countries have begun to bear fruit. After all, the overwhelming majority of citizens of the countries of the former USSR do not have strong knowledge of foreign languages. No more than 5% of the population speak English. There are more among young people. Therefore, at least the interface is in Russian - this is a big help for online shopping on this trading platform. eBay did not follow the path of its Chinese counterpart Aliexpress, where a machine (very clumsy and incomprehensible, sometimes causing laughter) translation of product descriptions is performed. I hope that at a more advanced stage of development of artificial intelligence, high-quality machine translation from any language to any in a matter of seconds will become a reality. So far we have this (the profile of one of the sellers on eBay with a Russian interface, but an English description):
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7a52c9a89108b922159a4fad35de0ab0bee0c8804b9731f56d8a1dc659655d60.png