It was definitely nerve racking, but with such a great group of guys and
wednesday13
they gave me the confidence to do it.
wednesday13
they gave me the confidence to do it.Acrylic starting to separate?
- Thread starter ADawson23
- Start date
Any time man… hope the triangle rods go in smooth/clean for ya. Id suspect they will after the seam job ya did. From the bit i can see between the clamps/towels it took it very well. Much better than my 1st attempts yrs ago doing the same thing lol…
OK folks, I build acrylic aquariums as a side hobby. Not little ones, I have built a total of four tanks over 240 gallons and actually built my current 600 gallon. I am not being dramatic when I way this... YOUR TANK IS A TICKING TIME BOMB!!! For real, I am not one for hysterics but I see several issues with your tank.
#1 and foremost. Whoever built that tank had no idea what they were doing. You can NOT laterally support the top of the tank with strips of acrylic. The top of an acrylic tank needs to be ONE SOLID PIECE with very large radiused corners at all the opening. If that tank is a couple years old I would bet you can see stress marks where those top pieces meet. The larger radius of openings prevents concentration of pulling forces and stress lines.
#2 Acrylic is NOT glued together. It is actually chemically welded. A PROPERLY built aquarium is one solid piece of acrylic when you are done. Suffice to say, over the counter weldon 40 which people use to chemically weld acrylic is actually not used by any professional tank builders. It expires quite quickly and is not very powerful. I mix my own solvent out of dichloroethylene, methylene chloride and lab grade acetic acid. Someone that built a tank like that.. is likely using weld on 40.
#3 The seams have no bubbles which is great, but having the pieces separate like they are is a very very very bad sign. They are not properly welded. Properly built acrylic tanks NEVER split. I had a 22 year old acrylic tank that was not thick enough and it literally had a front and back pane that bowed out like 7 inches.. The seams however were bomb proof.
#4 I built a tank that failed once. I used a readily available, yet cheaper cast acrylic. MArga cipta was the brand. It is a higher molecular weight material.. but here is the catch, that higher molecular weight results in poor welding/bonding. Seams looked great, tank was good for about 8 months. Sprung a like JUST like yours. but a bar clamp on it until I figured out what to do. about 8 days later, making dinner... BOOM....WHOOOSH.. 120 gallons of water and 10 fish instantly all over the living room.
#5 The problem is not "your tank is leaking". The problem is, your tank is not structurally sound. You can fix the leak but the structural integrity is another, much large issue. I suppose you could fix it by welding 3/4" radius in the corners with proper solvent but for a number of reasons I won't get into (they have to do with orientation of the tank while welding pieces) it is going to be challanging.
I truly am sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the very first picture I was like....oooh, that top, then the pictures of the seams.. uggh. Sorry.
#1 and foremost. Whoever built that tank had no idea what they were doing. You can NOT laterally support the top of the tank with strips of acrylic. The top of an acrylic tank needs to be ONE SOLID PIECE with very large radiused corners at all the opening. If that tank is a couple years old I would bet you can see stress marks where those top pieces meet. The larger radius of openings prevents concentration of pulling forces and stress lines.
#2 Acrylic is NOT glued together. It is actually chemically welded. A PROPERLY built aquarium is one solid piece of acrylic when you are done. Suffice to say, over the counter weldon 40 which people use to chemically weld acrylic is actually not used by any professional tank builders. It expires quite quickly and is not very powerful. I mix my own solvent out of dichloroethylene, methylene chloride and lab grade acetic acid. Someone that built a tank like that.. is likely using weld on 40.
#3 The seams have no bubbles which is great, but having the pieces separate like they are is a very very very bad sign. They are not properly welded. Properly built acrylic tanks NEVER split. I had a 22 year old acrylic tank that was not thick enough and it literally had a front and back pane that bowed out like 7 inches.. The seams however were bomb proof.
#4 I built a tank that failed once. I used a readily available, yet cheaper cast acrylic. MArga cipta was the brand. It is a higher molecular weight material.. but here is the catch, that higher molecular weight results in poor welding/bonding. Seams looked great, tank was good for about 8 months. Sprung a like JUST like yours. but a bar clamp on it until I figured out what to do. about 8 days later, making dinner... BOOM....WHOOOSH.. 120 gallons of water and 10 fish instantly all over the living room.
#5 The problem is not "your tank is leaking". The problem is, your tank is not structurally sound. You can fix the leak but the structural integrity is another, much large issue. I suppose you could fix it by welding 3/4" radius in the corners with proper solvent but for a number of reasons I won't get into (they have to do with orientation of the tank while welding pieces) it is going to be challanging.
I truly am sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the very first picture I was like....oooh, that top, then the pictures of the seams.. uggh. Sorry.
