225 gallon tank with pinhole leaks on the back edge. Question on process of reseal.

[uglygun]

I spent the past week building a stand for the tank, one that is much better built/braced than the old stand that the tank came with.

Dimensions of the tank are roughly(from top of my head) 51 inches long, 36 deep, 26 tall.

The pin hole leaks are coming from almost dead center of the back bottom edge of the tank. I got about 1/3 full on the tank this evening during set up and saw the water bubbling out. Was watching it carefully during this time since it was a craigslist tank.

For all I know this thing held water perfectly fine at the guys house but in moving it we could have tweaked it slightly given it's weight. Then again maybe the old crappy tank is partly responsible for the leak. Anyhow, I bought it, I live with it.

May wind up being a write off like a damn Vegas trip.


I have read old threads and have found the posts on GE Door/Seal 1 as well as aquarium silicone. I've read the how to on what do do for resealing.

My question after all this though is if it is enough to simply trim the inside edge of the seal along the entire bottom edge is enough before resealing. I know there is a bonded seal where the glass joints butt together. I really don't want to have to yank the bottom glass completely off to re-bond it to the four sides.

My thinking is that the strength in holding the tank together comes from the actual glass to glass butt joints. The overlap in the interior of the tank is just additional sealing with little actual strength/integrity to the tank itself.

Lastly, who knows if there's more leaks on the sides as I haven't reached a full fill on this thing yet.


Those of you who've done reseals. Did you do a complete rebuild of the tank, if so why and how big/gargantuan of a tank have you successfully rebuilt/resealed? Who has done the simple interior trimming of the tank to put a bead along the interior of the tank?


After moving it into the house, seeing the small leak, I now buy into the wisdom of moving the stupid thing back out onto my patio and letting it sit with a full tank for maybe a week before moving it inside. Still no gaurantees then either though.


Tank came with the sump, pumps, lights, and a couple other things for 500 dollars. There's a certain amount of work I'm willing to put into it and not give up but I also have a cut my losses point as well.

 

[uglygun]

Looks like I found the answer with a bit more reading. There is a lot of threads that pop up when you search for "leak".

Anyhow, general consensus seems to be to strip all 8 beads from the inside and reapply the bead to the interior. Cure time of 7 days being recommended. Looks like I know what I will be doing over the next couple weeks when I get off from work. That is after I get my two friends who helped me move the tank inside to have them help move it back outside.

 

[GetBit]

I have re-sealed about six tanks in my fish keeping career, the largest was a 125, i just cut out the 8 inside beads and put a bead of silicone down each one smoothing it out with my finger. What i did wrong was not masking off the outside edges of where you want the silicone to land. Once you get the seales stripped out of the tank, clean everything really well with rubbing alcohol and put strips of blue masking tape down the sides about a half inch from the corners. once you put your silicone in and smooth it with your finger tear off the tape and you will have a nice straight edge. I didnt to this on my tank and it came out kind of sloppy, but the tank has been running for 2 years since with no problems so i cant complain. good luck and testing outside would be a great idea

 

[flip_mode]

for 500 i would try my best to fix it also. another 40 dollars in silicone is well worth it.

 

[skjl47]

Hello; You will find a thread from time to time saying that they sealed a leak by only doing a small patch in a small area. I often wonder how long these fixes last as some of my partial seals did not last too long. Not a big deal on smaller tanks, but still a pain when you have to break down a tank to do a reseal. I have taken to doing all the inside seams at one time when a tank leaks. I do not separate the glass panels from each other , only cut out the old seam and reseal with new beads of silicone.

 

[Mr.Catfish]

Here's how I did my 135. The biggest I have resealed was a 150.
[video=youtube;qiKhaq4pSp8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiKhaq4pSp8[/video]

 

[deeda]

I use the same basic procedure that Mr. Catfish shows in his youtube video, though I use denatured alcohol instead of rubbing alcohol to thoroughly clean the glass before caulking. I also no longer use masking tape for straight edges as I found I did not really need it.

I prefer to wear thin plastic or latex gloves when using my finger to tool the silicone as I can wipe the excess silicone off my gloved finger with paper towels between joints much easier than a bare finger.

I also let the silicone cure for 7 days before leak testing the tank and haven't had a failure yet.

 

[skjl47]

Hello; Good visual guide Mr. catfish. When I cut out the old silicone and have bits of it inside the tank, a shop vac is handy for removing the small stuff. I also allow some time between cutting out the old silicone and applying the new to give any moisture that may have been trapped behind the old stuff a chance to dry out especially if the reseal is for a tank that has been leaking. I have set up a strong light to help dry the inside of a tank or on smaller tanks, that are easy to move, allow them to sit in the sun for a while. I have not wiped with alcohol before but will in the future, thanks for the post.

 

[uglygun]

Well I have an update.

2 updates so to speak.

First some background. The first pin hole leaks I noticed were coming from the back of the tank and were just tiny pin hole leaks. These appeared when I brought the tank to approximately 1/2 full.

Last Tuesday I went through and stripped all the silicone except for the well on the rear of the tank. Reattaching that thing to the back of the tank did not sound like a fun job so I left it attached to the back glass and the bottom with the intention of coming back over it with silicone.

I redid the silicone bead using GE1. Did all corners while coming back over the top of the old silicone attached to the well at the bottom and back glass(appeared to adhere to it fine).

After leaving it to sit for a good solid 4 days I went to do a water test. I filled it back to the 1/2 way point last night where I saw the pin hole leaks. Left it over night while keeping an eye on it from time to time. No pin hole leaks.

Now today I came back and started hooking up the refugium and pump so that I could go ahead and do a test fill and run some water in it at full capacity. Well, the pin hole leaks returned. Not in the same place as before but in 3 new areas.

All of the leaks are at the bottom piece of trim coming out of the plastic in a slow drip. I'm confounded as to where the hell it's coming from as my secondary seals look good from the GE1. No air bubbles in the silicone, decent overlap and radius in the corners. Was done within a few minutes from beginning to end so the setup and cure wasn't in several different states of completion.

So anyhow, here is where the leaks are. One is in the left rear corner where 3 pieces of glass meet, I can see the slightest little split in the black plastic as if the trim wasn't entirely glued together. Then there is another leak a few inches away from it on the back glass. Both are a slow drip where maybe I get a full drop of water every 30 seconds.

Last leak is on the front piece of trim. I can see a bit of a gap between the front glass and the plastic trim, as I use a paper towel to absorb the water it refills this 3-4 inch long gap(gap is maybe 1/32 wide enough for the edge of a razor blade) the water refills the gap and begins to bead up within about 10 seconds.


My thinking right now is that I probably should go for a complete stripping of the trim piece, yank the bottom glass, and re-attach the bottom glass to the tank. Looking at the butt joints of the side pieces of glass it appears they are good clean joints. But the integrity of the butt joints on the bottom seal leave me suspect. The old stupid MDF stand probably jacked the hell out of the weight distribution of this tank and now for insurance/peace of mind I think I am questioning whether I should do a partial rebuild and reattach the bottom glass.

I may give a 8 corner simple re-seal another shot. After reading that other folks have had to reseal multiple times I guess I shouldn't be too ahead of myself and I should just view the first attempt as a practice attempt.

And as I'm doing it a second time I may just go for jamming the sealant into the gaps between the bottom trim and the glass where the leaks are.


I'm getting anxious to get this done though as I've got a pond out in the back yard with 3 Jack Dempseys and 4 Tin Foil Barbs that need to come inside before it really cools off too much more. I'm in central California and it's time to get to thinking about bringing them inside.



A local shop has a tank of the same design, and the same exact crap stand, I am tempted to see if they can put me in contact with the manufacturer. I think the silicone they used was crap and maybe it's starting to let go, I'd love to have them just rebuild the tank if I could get it all done for around 200 bucks.

 

[uglygun]

Sounds like the guy who built the tank is named Mark from Aqua Aquariums located some place in the Los Angeles/Alhambra area. Got a number and going to try to contact him, may just pay to have the bottom glass redone.