Exploding tank... Advise anyone??

Hi,
i was hoping that some of you guys may be able to help me with a situation i experienced last night while laying in bed,
firstly, i had installed a 8footx1.3 footx3foot (LxDxH) in between my bed room and dining room about 2.5 years ago as the main feature in my house, the construction of the hole i made was professionally done as i am a licensed tradesman and all the concreting especially the base was as flat and perfectly mirror smooth and level. I had the correct high density foam underneath it, now the tank was again professionally custom built by a tank builder in Adelaide,SA to suit the needed dimensions and was made from brand new 1/2inch glass and had 3 support dividers on the top equally spaced out. there was no obvious scratchs in the glass except the minor expected cleaning ones here and there but definately none that i would have thought worthy of a mention really. The tank was an inch from the top and recently cleaned a few days prior, it had around 40 or so cichlids in there, usual small black substrate,mixture of fake and real plants, imitation rocks with coloured downlights in them,and a couple of pieces of driftwood in there laying along the length of the tank, black lights and standard aqua fluros above it, A fluval FX5 as my filtration and 2x 300 watt heaters which were mounted either end on there provided suction caps.

NOW Then the 'incident'! I was sitting in bed around 9pm(alone as my GF was on her way around)last night checking some emails on my laptop, then for no reason out of the quiet chatter from the news playing on the LCD in the corner comes a split second of a CRRR' coming from my left toward the tank then watched the whole face of it(and the surround enclosure made to conceal and access the tank from the bedroom side)with an almighty "crwooooOOOfff"! came crashing outwards and down, followed by the tsunami of water across the bedroom floor, flowing til it hit the opposite wall then it backed up flowed back the other way back out the door then down the hallway and out underneath the front door! there were fish flapping everywhere! it took me a moment to gather and comprehend what i had just witnessed then i flew to life gathering all my undoubtedlly equally stunned cichlids and started running them to my 4foot 'hospital tank' *i never had one for the first 12 months but thought i better set one up, SO PLS TAKE MY ADVICE AND SET ONE UP!! i am so lucky that i had it as i have just woken up and checked them and they are all alive and eating happily(slightlt crowded but ALIVE) i did lose one last night from a pretty deep slice he suffered during the crash of 08 but all in they fared up very well!::
I am out in outback NSW Australia and the weather is starting to slightly warm up as spring is in the air but by far been any kind of temperature extreme change??
I am honestly at a loss to figure out what may have caused this, half of he bottom is still intact along with3/4 of the dining room side but the bedroom side is totally gone.. luckily my cousin owns a carpet cleaning business and was able to come around last night and we cleaned everything up and removed the carpet to clean and dry it today so as afar as damage there its all well,
But if any of you guys may be able to shed any type of advise/comments/suggestions as to what may have caused this or if you have seen it happen before could you please write to me?? i have never skimped on anything when i decided to install it in the first place and as i said it was the main feature in my home and i was very meticulous in maintaining it. So any advice you guys may have could you please let me know! i want to put another one back as my house will be boring as now without having the moving colour wall thats always been there since i completey renovated the place 2 or so years back, i dont know if i should put 2 tanks side by side now and make a feature with a tank then a space then a tank kind of thing, like 2 cubes in the wall,. the one big one looked really impressive but after witnessing that i really dont know if il ever have the same trust in large tanks! the most concerning thing about it is that while my bedroom in the reno stage i had my king size bed set up with the headboard against the wall right underneath the tank in the diningroom for like 3 months til the bedroom was ready! if that had happened then, you guys would most certainly be reading some little add somewhere about a guy and his girlfriend in AUS bein killed in a freak exploding fish tank explosion, as im sure 1/2 plate glass dropping straight down onto our heads could have caused us some greif!

I tried putting my profile pic as a picture of my tank(pre explosion) but the file is to large, so if anyone can offer some advice here then pls send me your email and i can send u some pics of it,

Well thanks to you all how managed to listen through this small essay on my events of last night and hope to hear your thoughts/knowledge and advise!!
thanks again
Eljay
p.s, here is a pic, i have just noticed an attacment option, il give it a go. thanks again

well that was a very detailed description!!!!!! . Well the only thing i can think of that it may have been is the glass. Are you surre it was glass?? and are you sure that it was suitable for a fish tank?

You're not the first one to have that kind of disaster, but it's the biggest one I've heard about. In the Tips and Tricks section of this forum, there is a posting about building your own aquariums. It leads to a website that lists glass thickness and type for various aquarium heights. However, since you no doubt have researched such matters in advance, the problem could be due to uneven stress. Years ago when my commercially manufactured 55 gallon tank had a similar failure, I figured the floor in my old house had settled so the stand was exerting uneven pressure on the aquarium and thus causing a stress point. Before I installed and filled the aquarium, the stand would teeter a little bit. Your aquarium was really heavy, so it could have made the floor structure settle just enough to cause the uneven stress. Think about a really long piece of glass, moment arms, and applied loads. I don't know how to work those formulas any more, but you probably do. Maybe the whole thing would do better with a well anchored steel frame holding the aquarium.

I'm glad you were there to save the fish, and I'm glad you joined our forum. Keep us posted.

im not a pro at tank building but I have dabbled in it alittle it sounds to me like the builder of the tank should have used thicker glass and 3 supports is great but even commercial made 125 gallon tanks have 2 braces and they are about 5'x2x2.5. again I'm not a pro tank builder but I would quesion the maker. the water pressure is huge in that size tank. hope this helps alittle good luck!!!

Somewhere I read that big aquariums need to be made of tempered glass. Still, my bet is on uneven support causing a stress fracture. Then again, I'm a wannabe when it comes to building aquariums.

Hey,
thanks for replies to my tank dilema, i know it was very detailed but i wanted to left nothing unturned as for some kind of advise you guys may have had!
i see what you mean with the uneven pressure subject and agree with you fully, except the only thing is mine is a total concrete stucture, it was a non load bearing double brick wall which i propped and placed a very solid reinforced concrete beam over the top of and sides and concrete base (again with reinforcement mesh and rods inside) i then used a really fine cement based floor leveller and troweled the base to a billard table like level and smoothness, then waterproofed every exposed bit of concrete with fibreglass tape and acrylic compound, so there was definately no movement anywhere, a truck wouldnt move it! i had he high density foam underneath it also. iv spoken to few tank builders since my first post i put on here and they all seem to say that a support at the top must have given way resulting in the shift of weight which caused tank failure,
in the replacement of this tank they all say to go bigger on the glass thickness (at least 15mm) and to add another brace at the top. So im in total agreeance as i dont wanna risk death again with it all crashing to the ground only metres away from me could be alot worse next time!
so anyway thankyou to you all for taking the time to read my novel dilema and especially to you guys who replied posts, il keep in touch on the recon effort im up for!
p.s, luckily house insurance is covering both tank and any damage caused which is gd, only real damage is the tank, and mess to the carpet!
Oh, PSS to those of you who dont yet have a Spare running 'hospital tank' then DO SO! i saved all of my fish except 2 because i had it, they are living like they are in tokyo for the moment but they again will have the country lfestyle they had! thrs no place like home

I'm happy if our speculation helped at least a little bit. Like littleman said, you're dealing with some huge loads. It would be really interesting to see a picture after you rebuild.

i seond the pic request it sound like it would be a real nice tank