Leak testing. Try #2 after 3 coats of silicone both inside and out.
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I took a risk. 425 craigslist rebuild
- Thread starter OTp1144
- Start date
All full!
But...
Ignore most of the water. It's from the hose. There are leaks in the wood, so a new coat of pond shield is called for.
But...
Should it be bowing?
It's supposedly made of lexan, is this amount of bowing okay, or do I have a really nice terrarium now?
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But...
Ignore most of the water. It's from the hose. There are leaks in the wood, so a new coat of pond shield is called for.
But...
Should it be bowing?
It's supposedly made of lexan, is this amount of bowing okay, or do I have a really nice terrarium now?
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Im guessing the lexan/acrylic is 1/2" at 30" height or so? If thats the case its bowing typically as it should lol...unpleasant to look at but quite common to find 30" or taller acrylics made in 1/2" material. 3/4" would be more appropriate for the height. Its not going to shatter or anything, just keep an eye on the wood surround bowing holding the lexan. If you get alot of bowing around your sealant area it could seperate over time under the pressure.
What are your ideas to reseal the wood itself? Typically, any sealing of the wood would happen before silicone, but i think some of the rubberized paints may adhere to the silicone and lexan to prevent u tearing that all back out. Check out Sanitred paints, "Spiff" would be my member recomendation for sanitred, he had good results but im not positive what kind was used.
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What are your ideas to reseal the wood itself? Typically, any sealing of the wood would happen before silicone, but i think some of the rubberized paints may adhere to the silicone and lexan to prevent u tearing that all back out. Check out Sanitred paints, "Spiff" would be my member recomendation for sanitred, he had good results but im not positive what kind was used.
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I was planning to use pond shield/pond armor to coat the inside. It seems like that's what was already used, so I'd just be adding another coat on. My thought was if that stuff can stick to concrete, it can stick to itself. Even if it's years old.
The problem is I don't know where it's actually leaking from. If I could pin point it, I'd just seal it up with silicone. But it seems there are parts of the actual inside that are letting water seep through. So I'm just gonna redo the whole thing. I might even silicone the bottom edges of the tank in addition. The ones not where the acrylic is. Not sure I'll need it though, as the pond shield should be enough.
Now that we're back from server maintenance...
Ordered pond shield. Gonna sand/clean/wash/rinse/sand/clean/etc.... until it's spick and span and then lay it down. It won't seal to silicone by my understanding, so I'm going to avoid putting it on those seals. Which should be easy enough as I only sealed the front.
Next decision is if I want to reinforce the acrylic with a small 1x2 or something just to help prevent bowing. I'm sure it doesn't need it, but if this is going in my house, in our game room, which has hardwood flooring, a little extra reinforcement will definitely help me sleep at night.
Also figured out the easiest way to filter this baby, and what I'm probably gonna go with:
Main filtration- Laguna Pressure-Flo 3200 + internal pump moving 2900 gph.
Secondary - Hook up some sort of planted refugium (possibly 40g breeder) using the external overflow box that originally came on the tank. This will be dealt with later once we get it up and running. But since I can't have plants in the main tank, I'm hoping this will at least help a little bit in keeping the nitrates down.
My second lesson learned from this build: Do things in the right order. Looking back, I should have taken the front pane out, dropped a pond liner in there, put the front pane back on, sealed it and called it a day. BUT, hindsight is always 20/20.
Ordered pond shield. Gonna sand/clean/wash/rinse/sand/clean/etc.... until it's spick and span and then lay it down. It won't seal to silicone by my understanding, so I'm going to avoid putting it on those seals. Which should be easy enough as I only sealed the front.
Next decision is if I want to reinforce the acrylic with a small 1x2 or something just to help prevent bowing. I'm sure it doesn't need it, but if this is going in my house, in our game room, which has hardwood flooring, a little extra reinforcement will definitely help me sleep at night.
Also figured out the easiest way to filter this baby, and what I'm probably gonna go with:
Main filtration- Laguna Pressure-Flo 3200 + internal pump moving 2900 gph.
Secondary - Hook up some sort of planted refugium (possibly 40g breeder) using the external overflow box that originally came on the tank. This will be dealt with later once we get it up and running. But since I can't have plants in the main tank, I'm hoping this will at least help a little bit in keeping the nitrates down.
My second lesson learned from this build: Do things in the right order. Looking back, I should have taken the front pane out, dropped a pond liner in there, put the front pane back on, sealed it and called it a day. BUT, hindsight is always 20/20.
Second coat down. Now we wait.
Sorry for the dirty front.
I also found a couple holes in the silicone, so that will get filled in after 24 hours
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Sorry for the dirty front.
I also found a couple holes in the silicone, so that will get filled in after 24 hours
Sent from my 831C using MonsterAquariaNetwork App
So now that we are on to hopefully the last leak test tomorrow *fingers crossed*, I've started thinking about filtration.
My plans as of now are to hook up a laguna pressure-flo 3200 with a 2900 gph internal pump. I've already got one on my 300g koi pond, so the question is do I want to get another one or combine the two. My only hesitation is some of the koi will be too flashy for the channel cat who decided to try and make a meal out of one of them when I dropped him in there before the move. :/ It's all going to depend on how expenses are looking at the time.
However, on top of that, eventually I'm going to try and get the external overflow put back on and set up a refugium underneath to try and cut down on nitrates and in turn my weekly water change amount. I'm torn however between a 40g breeder and a 55g. Once I get the overflow hooked up, plumbing shouldn't be an issue as I just bought 100' of pond tubing for my side job. But I'm just not sure which tank will be easier to turn in to a refugium... I'm definitely gonna fill it with TONS of fast growing plants as well as a good bunch of slower ones. I just have to map it out to see which will give me the most sq footage for plants. Course I also had a dream of putting a giant java moss wall on the back... Maybe later.
Expect pictures to follow once it's full of water tomorrow night.
My plans as of now are to hook up a laguna pressure-flo 3200 with a 2900 gph internal pump. I've already got one on my 300g koi pond, so the question is do I want to get another one or combine the two. My only hesitation is some of the koi will be too flashy for the channel cat who decided to try and make a meal out of one of them when I dropped him in there before the move. :/ It's all going to depend on how expenses are looking at the time.
However, on top of that, eventually I'm going to try and get the external overflow put back on and set up a refugium underneath to try and cut down on nitrates and in turn my weekly water change amount. I'm torn however between a 40g breeder and a 55g. Once I get the overflow hooked up, plumbing shouldn't be an issue as I just bought 100' of pond tubing for my side job. But I'm just not sure which tank will be easier to turn in to a refugium... I'm definitely gonna fill it with TONS of fast growing plants as well as a good bunch of slower ones. I just have to map it out to see which will give me the most sq footage for plants. Course I also had a dream of putting a giant java moss wall on the back... Maybe later.
Expect pictures to follow once it's full of water tomorrow night.
