Where to buy acrylic for sump

[aaron186]

Looking to make a DIY sump using an petco 20L and some acrylic baffled for a simple sump. Does anyone know where I can find the acrylic for it? Is it hard to cut?

[smiz]

You can get stuff at lowes or depot or you can look around for a plastic distributor in your area. They would most likely have cheap scrap for the size you're looking for. As for as cutting you can do it on router or table saw.

[Boggers]

most glass shops have it and Lowes. Very easy to cut.

[braaap]

First off where are you located?

 

Tapplastics.com will ship. Within 5 minutes of my shop in Seattle there are 5 plastics shops. I bet you have atleast 1 or 2 within 20 mins of you if you live in a decent sized city.

[rone_kevin66]

I would use glass for the baffles not acrylic. Acrylic really dosent like to bond to glass.

[Legot]

I would use glass for the baffles not acrylic. Acrylic really dosent like to bond to glass.

It doesn't need to in a sump, but the most solid glue I've found for joining the two are e6000, which is some kind of weird silicone compound, and traditional silicone. Silicone bonds to acrylic well enough for pretty much anything, just don't build an acrylic tank with silicone. Amazon sells 12"x12" sheets of 1/4" acrylic in packs of 8 for just over $40, otherwise it's about $10 per sheet at that thickness (any thinner and you might have bending issues).

 

Everyone always insists on using acrylic, but literally any plastic sheet would work, the cheapest is probably PVC sheet. Cutting and gluing it would be the same as acrylic as long as you don't try to laser cut it. A 24"x48" sheet is about $25 on amazon.

[ajmckay]

IME 1/4" acrylic is ideal - it's sturdy enough and it can be siliconed in place well enough. Google acrylics supplier in your area - the home depot by me has sheets of 1/4" acrylic as well in clear. If you can't find it go on eBay. As Braaap mentioned black ABS also works and sometimes you can find 12x12 pieces on eBay for pretty cheap, plus the smaller size pieces makes shipping cheaper. Acrylic must be cut with router or table saw. You could use a hack saw if you're really steady and go slow - the silicone will take up some of the inconsistencies.

 

1/8" acrylic is too flimsy unless it's a super small tank with the same water level through the entire thing.

 

1/8" + glass works well, and it's really cheap (You could probably get thin glass like this for free if you found an old tank on craigslist for free or a few $). The one major downside is that it's sharp as hell unless you can smooth the edges. Silicone carbide sandpaper works but takes a lot of elbow grease. A diamond disc in an angle grinder is much faster and you can get a smooth profile. It's easy to cut with a simple $3 scoring tool.

 

ABS $27

[gulfsurfer101]

I built this out of scrap acrylic from my local plastic shop! I paid fifteen for the acrylic, ten for a used fine finish circular saw blade from the same shop and a five dollar bottle of silicone from hd! I still have enough to build one more!

[aaron186]

I found a glass supplier in my area that will cut me any dimension smaller sized slabs for 7 each of 1/4 in glass

[cmv]

If you order online, try this place:

 

http://www.delviesplastics.com/p/clear_acrylic_sheet.html

 

I'm near TAP Plastics but the above place is more affordable. It's on my list to try (saw it recommended on an aquarium forum -- can't remember which).