dixon wrote:
Now, here's where the troubling part comes in. Lets say the
back of the tank, instead of being 72" away from the front is moved forward
until it is just 1/8 of an inch away from the front glass. Now there is less
than two gallons of water in the tank. I have trouble seeing the glass (3/4
in. thick) bowing from 2,500 lbs of "push" from less than two gallons of
water(16 lbs). I suppose we could even shrink the 1/8 in. to a few
thousandths and put a thimble of water in. Would there still be 2,500 lbs
of outward force from a gram or two of water? Would the heavy duty scale
across the room be forced all the way to the two thousand, five hundred
pound mark?

Here's my theory:
As you decreased the distance between front and back, and the front
galss bowed out, the volume of the tank would increase and the water
depth would lower, decreasing the water pressure on the glass.

Water depth and density determine the water pressure.