need some advise on my tank

rotccapt

Candiru
MFK Member
Jun 7, 2009
311
11
48
oklahoma
hi all about a year and a half ago i built a 120 gallon plywood tank with three viewing windows made from 1/2 inch acrylic. well 2 months ago my house suffered a fire and i had to drain the tank and it went off to a cleaning company to get cleaned and then we will get delivered back to me when my house is fixed. i can almost positive that i will need to reseal the tank because im sure the acrylic will pop out from being moved. also i need to replace the back plywood due to water damage from my multiple overflow designs. so i am thinking about replacing the acrylic with glass because i really dont like the acrylic its not bad but it already has some scratches on it and it was a bear to seal and i had to reseal it when i moved it from the garage to the house. so since i am planning on replacing the windows, and replacing the back. do you think i should just rebuild the whole tank or just try to fix this one? im afraid that i will end up destroying the tank if i try to replace the back panel because it is glued, screwed every inch, and is fiber-glassed in. also i dont know how hard it would be to remove all the silicon that is currently holding in the acrylic. so if you were in my shoes what would you do. here is a pic of the tank shortly after finishing. P1020274.JPG

P1020274.JPG
 

fishaddict0417

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Nov 11, 2010
30
0
0
St Louis
Honestly if it were me I would start from scratch. I think if you pulled off the back wall you would end up having to redo all of your waterproofing(fiberglass, silicone, epoxy etc), not to mention ripping off that glue would prolly due a lot of harm to the rest of the tank. Sorry man, but I think you'll have to start over.
The bright side is now you get to make it better (or bigger). Now would be a perfect opportunity to perfect your tank design. I don't mean to say your tank was bad at all, but I'm sure you've thought of plenty of things to make better, or bigger.

Good luck
 

rotccapt

Candiru
MFK Member
Jun 7, 2009
311
11
48
oklahoma
yea that was kinda what i was thinking. but you are right i do have some ideas i want to try on this tank. since this is a turtle and African cichlid tank, i have a lot of waste to deal with. also i am using large 1 inch gravel in the bottom of the tank "so that the turtle cant eat it" so it is hard to gravel-vac. so i had a though of installing a false bottom in the tank made from egg crate and have a current run under the tank with a bottom drain overflow. my hope is that this will allow the waste to drop below the gravel and get swept away into the filter.

also i plan on repurposing the acrylic to make a new sump. i know that 1/2 inch acrylic is overkill for a sump but i already have it so why not. i have two 24 inch square sections and a 24x48 inch section of acrylic to play with
 
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