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glass suckers


camtang

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has anybody used glass suckers to move big tanks around? i was wondering if the pulling motion that they employ to lift might pull silicone apart or not? i was thinking about using them as more of a ballancing role and to take a bit of extra weight not as a primary lifting role

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I once used the professional type to lift my old 8' tank. Empty it was around 300kg and just too difficult to lift from underneath. We used 6 x 200mm diameter suckers which stuck on no problem. The tank will definitely not pull apart when being lifted this way as the force to lift the empty tank is only a fraction of the force on the silicone joints when full of water... I feel this method is much safer as you have a nice handle to grip instead of you hand curved around the sharp glass edge where it's easy to slip off.

The type of sucker shown in the photo above would really only be any good for small tanks as you don't get anywhere as good a vacuum. If it's big you want the professional type with a pump-button to create a really strong vacuum between the sucker and the glass.

To me 5ft 500L is smallish. My tank was 1200L 8' and I considered it medium sized. The 3000L tank I made was approaching large but that needed a crane... 8)

In saying that, using glass suckers on any tank really makes life much easier as you have a very firm place to get grip vs a sharp slippery glass edge.

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The "professional" ones also usually have a rating for the maximum weight they can lift, so you should be able to figure out how many you need to comfortably lift the tank. If I don't have it made on site I'll certainly be getting some to move my next big tank!!

Slightly OT, but did you ever do an article/build thread/pics of your 3000L build Warren? Would be very interested to see how it was made etc.

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Hi David, no I never did do an article but did describe the process in lesser detail in a post ages ago. I don't even know if I still have any photo's...

However, it would be interesting to write up so I could do something for the AW and post it up here after that.

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Choice!! I've been reading a lot of the ply/fibreglass builds on MFK and seriously considered doing one this time around, but just don't quite have the space to go big enough to justify it (IMO). That said, I still haven't had a price for the all glass tank, so that may change my mind!

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