Do I need to return my aquarium?

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wumbology38

Gambusia
MFK Member
Mar 6, 2016
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IMG_8926.jpegHey everyone, this past weekend I setup a 60 gallon Marineland ensemble I got at petsmart. The tank, brackets and all silicon looked fine prior to setting it up, but after filling with water on Saturday, I noticed white streaks in the black bracket/silicon joining the front pane of glass to the right pane of glass. They didn’t appear to bubbles and were truly white in color. (See first photo) Since filling on Saturday I have drained the tank to about 70% full while I debated the best course of action. Since Saturday, the white streaks have largely dissipated. (See second photo). I don’t have the foggiest idea of what I am looking at. Is this a sign of a seam failure and/or should I return the tank? IMG_8916.jpeg
 
I am not an expert in the slightest but it does look like the silicone being stretched to me, which is a bad sign. Is there any sort of gap thats created when you fill the tank? say just enough to get a finger nail in?
 
I’d drain and return that in a hurry if if were mine

wednesday13 wednesday13 is the resident expert here.

Im versed in acrylic repair… honestly don’t know much about glass past resealing tanks. This is def. not my area of knowledge lol…
 
That would have me worried I agree with P phreeflow drain the aquarium and return it.
 
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This is the 24" tall 60g tank they sell? Looks like 1/4" glass maybe? Is the top frame compromised/broken in some way? To me it seems like that seam is indeed starting to split open and i would not trust that tank personally, best to get it replaced/refunded.

These days a lot of the mass produced tanks are using thinner tempered glass under the pretense that tempered is stronger than annealed glass. While that may be true, ime the glass will still flex a bit under the water pressure and gradually wears out and stretches the vertical seams, especially if the plastic top frame is worn out, broken somewhere, or just poorly installed. Ive seen this exact issue in two different 72x24x30 tanks with 1/2" tempered glass that leaked after a few years in operation and were cracked in different parts of the top frame.

In your case it might not be exactly that issue, but perhaps the tank was poorly built or the silicone was bad/expired, or a combination of all these things. Whatever the case i would not trust it.
 
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Hey y’all, thank you so much for the advice. I drained the tank last night and am going to return it this weekend. It seems like the silicon was splitting as when I drained the tank it almost looked like the right pane of glass was started to get ever so slightly pushed out. One more thing I want to ask about: Prior to setting up the tank, I checked for the tank and stand to both be level. However, after setting it up I noticed the water on the right side was slightly higher and determined the floor on the right side of where I had the tank setup is about an 1/8 of an inch lower. Could an 1/8 of an inch difference have caused that issue? Beyond that, is there anything I should do to rectify this issue? From reading online, it didn’t seem like an 1/8 of an inch difference should be that significant but I’d love to hear some thoughts on solutions if needed.
 
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