Cutting Back Top of 250g Acrylic Tank

[Yellow Eyes]

I recently purchased this 72x30x30" Acrylic tank which was setup for freshwater locally and of course want to turn it into a reef tank. The problem is that the top cut outs are extremely small - 22"x15" - which is a problem for both adding aquascape as well as (I assume so correct if I am wrong) lighting.

The tank itself looks to be made out of 9/16" Acrylic, the top is ~7/16". I was hoping to get the collective opinion about how safe the tank would be if I were to cut those openings out to around 3-4" from the edge of the tank - euro brace style - and kept a 4" cross brace down the center.

Also looking for opinions on how to best accomplish something like this.

 

[KrisReef]

The center overflow says, "No."

 

[C_AWOL]

That's really thin material for a 30" tall tank. Cutting larger openings will likely cause the tank to bow a lot more than it probably already does and going as far as only a 4" perimeter brace may lead to the tank failing out right at the thickness of material used.

 

[andrewey]

A lot of the strength in a tank like that comes from the top. It's not necessary, but most tanks I've seen have had 3/4" sides, you can likely go lower if you have a pretty beefy top. Cutting the top as you suggested sounds risky to me, but you're best bet is to reach out to a tank manufacturer such as Tenecor Aquariums or any of the commercial acrylic tank fabricators directly on this forum to pick their brain.