Acrylic

Sabic Polymershapes in Cedar Rapids. DO NOT buy at Menards. Sabic is the cheapest and stocks what you NEED to properly build aquarium products. Tell Patti or Max that you need the same type of stuff that Bud buys. Arkema Cell Cast "general purpose", paper mask, without print.

Regal is a rip off.

 

Ok I'll restate that.

Regal in Des Moines is a rip off. I would rather drive 2 hours to CR to buy from Sabic.

1) They charge $7.50 on top of every order no matter how big or small, unless you are buying a bit or weld on or something small and pay cash.
2) They cannot (repeat - CANNOT) obtain the general purpose Arkema product, which is perfectly fine for sumps and frag tanks, and is 25% less expensive. They only carry the Plex-G cell cast material (w/printed mask) because according to them, they work on display cases/etc that cannot have any inclusions in the material. Never mind that I have yet to see such an inclusion on the General Purpose Arkema stuff.
3) They cannot obtain 1/4" Black Plex-G. Only extruded, which IMO is crap. I have no idea why they cannot obtain it. I have to get Sabic to bring this in from MN or Seattle.
4) Des Moines Regal does not sell scrap to the public anymore. They have an exclusive contract with some company that recycles it or something. So even if they have it they won't sell it to you
5) Regal is the only acrylic supplier in Des Moines.
6) Even if they can obtain your preferred material, they charge you $100 per sheet extra to have it shipped in. Sabic will get it for you shipped to their facility for free as long as you can wait for them to piggyback it on another order, or at least for much less than $100/sheet.
7) Sabic will cut sheets for you as well, usually a couple cuts is free or very cheap. Generally you have to buy the entire sheet. But occasionally they have scraps they will sell at SF equivalent price.
8) Back to the price, yes price is about the same on -G material. However once you realize that you do not need -G material unless you are building a professional quality display tank (and not necessarily even then, and I never use extruded for anything but baffles and trays, and usually not even then) and Regal doesn't (won't) carry the General Purpose stuff, it's a slam dunk for Sabic.

I have a generally bad taste in my mouth for the Regal in Des Moines. They have always seemed completely disinterested in helping me obtain what I need for all my projects. Sabic has bent over backwards to help me out. If it weren't for them I would be charging a lot more for my Algae Scrubbers. Mike MJB Tanks went through the same thing on pricing them out. They are complete dicks here.

 

Fair enough. I stand corrected on Regal in general. My comment only applies to Regal Des Moines. Their steaks are horrible /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default//emoticons/smile.gif

 

The last year or so has been extremely volatile as far as pricing goes since acrylic is a petroleum by-product, and also China is playing their games with raw materials. I saw a 50% increase in sheet cost over a 6 month period at one point.

I haven't asked about Arkema (plexiglas parent company) 1/2" General Purpose (also called p-max or pmacs or something like that) but probably between $225 and $240/sheet and yes 4x8. Black 1/2" is about $10 more.

Last price I had from Regal for Plex-G 1/2" was $320.

 

Unless the sump is tall and has no baffles, 1/2" is kind of overkill. I use 3/8" for pretty much all braced sumps, even if it's only a thin perimeter brace. Let me know if you want help with design and/or material selection.

the most important part is the edge prep. Rough cut (panel or table saw) edges are not the best for getting good joints and squaring of the ends is key. You can make one that 'gets by' quite easily, but for one that lasts you just need to add in the detailed prep work.

FWIW I think thicker material is actually easier to work with though. At least on a big router table like I have /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default//emoticons/smile.gif