HI there

bought a 8 foot tank ono trademe 8 foot by 50w by 57high

arrived with a one foot crack

the crack is like a horse shoe shape that startsfrom the edge of the length , bows around and bends u shape and ends at the edge again, 1 foot from the starting point.

the tank apparently was built wiht no bracing at all, and i see none this confirms it.

its 10 m glass, and was filled wiht water, they claiim fully filled,

1: is this strong enough wiht out bracing to contain water? full capacity?

also, how muh do you think for someone to come and patch the crack, and install bracing everywhere?

can it and should be fixed? i did not pay for it, in essence its a free 8 foot tank with a crack, but is its useless or can be fixed?

just want a ball park figure

so i got something to barter with a tank guy.

I would expect to pay a fair bit to get a new piece of glass that big I paid $200 for 2 150 x 60 x 60 pieces in 10mm and some 150 x 7.5 braces.. But that was fairly cheap.. IMO the only option on a tank that size is to replace the whole piece of glass, maybe just ring around glaziers and ask prices until you find the best one or barrie maybe able to help, and yes if I was getting it fixed I would put braces on it too.

Good luck!

You should be able to get a piece that size and braces from offcuts which are at a better price usually---ask around.

This tank with no bracing has a safety factor of 2.354 on the front and back panes. If you install full length top bracing as well as front to back bracing, the safety factor rises to 2.80. This is a reasonable increase. It will also make the tank a lot more rigid in an earthquake. This is not so important for the glass strength but more for the silicone. If the glass panels start to flop around a bit due to no bracing, it causes the silicone to stretch more and possibly fail...

Depending on how far out the horseshoe shaped crack extends, a patch could very likely fix the tank. Replacing the whole sheet would be better but if the patch is relatively small it could work. It will need to be 10mm thick as well though and extend approx 100mm beyond the cracked area where possible.