Replaced my center brace..

[Poolrad]

Got my tools together and decided since it was acrylic & plastic I didn't want to put too much pressure so I would do a small drilled hole, then expand it, and expand it, and expand it. Here are the bits:


Here is how the brace first looks, it is on a 46g Bowfront Oceanic:


Notice the salt residue? Couldn't get it off no matter what..

So I started drilling holes on the existing brace to begin with, took it real slow about 30 minutes to drill 4 holes using the small bit then larger bit, and so on till the size I needed:


Once I had the 4 holes done I whipped out the dremmel and began to slice through the old brace, I was afraid that I would push too hard and fall into the tank with the plugged in dremmel. So I took it really really slow...


At that point it was just hanging by a thread and I pulled it right off to expose the tank. Notice the large adjustable clamp I had on the tank so it would not move:


At this point it was fairly easy, put the cut acrylic on top. Drop in the teflon bolts, add the washer and screw on the nut. This was really easy and went quickly. At that point it was now in place:


Tomorrow I am going to hang up the pendant I won at the July meeting by having two arms come out of the wall behind my tank and balance the pendant on some stainless steel wire. I can't use a ceiling mount kit for it since the ceiling is about 30feet up above the tank...

So the pendant hanging project I will document tomorrow...

You can see zoomed in photo's in my gallery if you can't make em out here...

[Gem Tang Rider]

Poolrad,
Hows your center brace holding up?
How thick was the acrylic you used?
Thanks Tom