Seems as though all of you are just waiting at your computers with your twichy fingers wondering what I am going to do. Do you all have lives?
Anyway... @DaveMundy... my name is indeed Kayte. And I only wish I had the time to save up and get the "right" and "best" materials. But I have no idea how long my friend will keep his interested in this project. Besides, it is fast becoming the busy time of year for him so it would be wrong to take him away from paying jobs just to build this aquarium for little old me. As the opportunity is now, I must make the best of it.
W
Wednesday
... I did take your advice and buy the 40. In fact I even visited with a Plastic Fabricator today. He told me to take some of it, put it in a bottle, and use it like it was 16 if I need to. Anyway, I ended up buying 1/4" thick black acrylic in three pieces. I am just small enough that I can fit through the windows on the top of the tank. Each piece was cut in a way that would fit through one of the windows. So I plan on getting very high tomorrow sniffing 40 after my friend puts the aquarium on the drop cloth I have on the floor. The pieces were cut in such a way that it will be a tight fit so I am sure I will create a few more light scratches on the inside that will need to be buffed out. Therefore I will glue/weld down the acrylic sheets on the the bottom. Next I will then sand down the inside of the tank after letting it sit for a few days and polish both inside and out with Novus plastic polish 3, 2, & 1. Then my contractor friend who is a cichlid crazy man and thus this ain't his first rodeo either will come back drill out the holes in the black acrylic, place the new bulkheads and intake strainers, place the aquarium back on the stand, and hook up all the plumping to my two canister filters.
BUT before I do any of that, my friend will drill a 1/8" hole at the end of the crack with the drill bit that I just bought from the Plastic Fabricator (yes... it says right on the package for plastics only). I will then fill in the hole with weldon 4 and hope that capillary action will seal most of the crack so that it doesn't become larger than it is.
I am still going to buy the Pond Shield. I think I might use it on the back inside of the tank even though I already painted the outside of the back with Plasti Dip. Or I may not use it on the back of the tank at all. I will sand and polish the inside of the back panel and make a judgement call then. But what I am sure of is that I am going to paint the inside of the wood planter boxes that I intend to use as an additional filter for the aquarium. I am going to fill the planter boxes with lava rock, and plant pathos plants and lucky bamboo for nitrate filtration. But that is a future project for later. I think I might first save up for a wet/dry sump DIY tank which will be way better than the canister filters I got with the tank.
Why you would even think, Wednesday, that I would fill in a 2" hole with glue is beyond me. I am not a blonde seeking scratch and sniff stickers on the bottom of a goldfish pond. But after spending a few minutes enclosed in the aquarium applying 40, I just might seek out stickers on the bottom of the aquarium!
We shall see.
millerkid519
... Trust me. If I could move back to Alaska, I would in a heartbeat. I lived there for my entire life and I miss it very much.
So there you have it, All. I have a plan and have bought all my materials. Now you are all free to ridicule it and tell me how my plan will fail and that I will one day come home to 200 gallons on my living room floor. Incidentally, I do plan on getting not only a water alarm that will be placed inside the stand but also the seneye reef device that will monitor the water level in my aquarium. If water is present on the floor or the water level of the tank drops below the seneye sensor, I will be notified immediately on my cell phone. Did I mention my renters insurance will cover my aquarium. And don't try and tell me that it won't. This is where I am the expert. I do insurance policies all day long. It all in how you present a claim to the adjustor whether or not they pay.
I am not the idiot you all think I am. Whatever! You all, after reading this post, will probably still think I am an idiot. I guess only time will tell. Maybe I will post a picture of my failure once a year so you all can see that the repair is still holding. You all are just absolutely brutal in your advice and very ridged in your thinking. I can see why Butch now stays away from answering people's questions about his product in forums. BTW... this may surprise all of you but he too recommended the acrylic patch method. He even gave me a name of an acrylic supplier that would give me a discount. But shipping became cost prohibitive compared to what I could get at the local plastic fabricator shop.
So there you have it. Let the lambasting begin! I am sure my whipping girl (my alter ego) will be entertaining to read and further educated by the comments that will enviably follow.
Cheers,
Kayte
