[abduhl]

Why would you expect the forces acting on the glass to be ill-distributed if the enclosure were tilted slightly? Water pressure acts hydrostatically. The enclosure appears to have a circular cross section. As long as the tilt is not severe there is no reason to believe anything other than tensile hoop stresses due to equal circumferential loading will develop.

[a4a4a4a4]

The normal force of the tank wall to the floor will shear across the acrylic if it's not perfectly flat. Pressure outwards is normal to the tank wall relative to the water, but if this force goes diagonally through the floor, that's bad.

[abduhl]

If the tank burst due to it shearing off of its base then it is not the glass that has the problem; it’s the connection to the base. This might sound pedantic but the OP said the forces on the GLASS were ill-distributed. The most important part of after the fact disaster analysis from an engineering context is being excruciatingly specific about the performance of structural elements.

[upsidesinclude]

If you wanted to be pedantic you would correct the statement because there is no glass.

To be excruciatingly specific.

[abduhl]

The article refers to the aquarium as glass throughout it.

[kayodelycaon]

The material used is plexiglass, aka acrylic, a type of clear plastic. Actual glass is probably too brittle or expensive.

People use "glass" to mean the clear part of a window, not the actual material, in this context.

[upsidesinclude]

Plexiglas®

A trade name.

[abduhl]

I'm glad to hear that you'd agree with me then that a correction saying "there is no glass" would be inappropriate because when someone says glass they mean the clear part of the tank.

[lqet]

But isn't the overwhelming majority of the glass material connected to the base by the glass itself (namely the glass below it)?

[jacquesm]

That all depends on whether the underlying surface is still perfectly flat around the perimeter. If it is not then you get local stress variations that can lead to catastrophic failure.

The seams between the panels are likely also not designed to be loaded that way.

Just the asymmetrical load on the structure could do the trick at a relatively small angle because it might cause the structure to get compressed against something bordering it. This is not a trivial engineering project.

[bombcar]

I would expect it's not the tilted slightly that would matter but simply settling after installation - a settling foundation can crack concrete and glass so stresses could change if the foundation of the tank was moving.