# Eurobracing a tank



## liquid_krystale (Dec 13, 2011)

I picked up a used Hagen 77 gallon tank a while ago. When it was being moved out of its former owner's house, the top plastic bracing cracked and lifted away from the glass, so it's been sitting in the garage ever since.

Eventually I would like to try and turn the tank into a euro-braced rimless discus showcase tank. Does anyone know of a local shop that does Euro-bracing, and how much approx it would cost for a standard 70 gallon tank?

Conversely, anyone DIY'd eurobracing before? How did it turn out?

TIA


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## Clownloachlover (Apr 21, 2010)

eurobracing is easy to do...you need four pieces 1.5" wide, the same thickness as the glass on your tank and the right lengths, (or seven pieces of glass if you want to include a center cross brace). If you are making this a show case tank you can have the glass edges polished to make them look fantastic. you can remove the plastic trim pieces anyways as most of the tanks made the top plastic trim is just a convenience piece for canopies, lights and glass tops. once you remove the plastic trim, clean away any residual silicone (razor blade, acetone and isopropynol). Then run a bead of silicone around the top edge and place the glass pieces onto the silicone...if you want to get really professional watch Joey's videos on you tube (uarujoey) and watch how he uses masking tape to make the silicone beads perfectly even. if you want to make this a showcase tank that may be the way you want to do it. I can draw you a diagram and email it to you if you want...

here is the video...


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## mitchb (Apr 27, 2011)

I have done it with acrylic it is really not that hard. For acrylic just substitue the bonding solution for silicone.









So what you need to do is the following:
Get the black brace totally off, remove all silicone etc as when you re silicone you want it to be glass to silicone to glass.
Measure the width of euro bracing you want. When I was looking at doing it I saw 2 inches was generally the accepted size. 
Measure your glass, of the tank, width. Again when I was looking into making my euro brace this is what was recommended.
Measure the pieces of glass that you will need. Remember that if your length wise is running the whole length of the tank to have everything flush you must remove the width of those pieces of glass from the pieces of eurobrace going width wise across your tank.
Get your glass and silicone it in place with supports with aquarium safe silicone.

Biggest thing to think about that I never did is your filtration. I dont know what your plan is but when you are eurobracing it might impact certain hob or canister filters. For the canisters I just put the hook part around the eurobrace and it was fine. Just something to keep in mind.

In my picture you can see I also added cross bracing, as I am going to need thick lids for my arowana I just wanted to add some extra support in there.

Hope that helps.


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## liquid_krystale (Dec 13, 2011)

Thanks guys! I will check out that DIY vid loachlover. 

Any suggestions on glass cutters in the surrey/delta area?


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