Baffle silicon broke

[soupa2]

Hi all. Recently one of my baffle in the sump broke which holds back the water. It’s the piece that allows the water to go underneath this narrow path.

1. Do I have to stop the sump than dry out area and resilicon it and be done within a day??
2. How long you think my sump will be down for?
3. For the mean time I have to move the 30liters of matrix to tank and just a power head will be enough to I fix the sump baffle?

 

[Ulu]

To fix it correctly everything has to be dry and you must scrape it all down with a razor blade and alcohol.

Get a big plastic garbage can and put all your media and aged water in it and throw a heater and an air stone inside and then you'll have lots of time to clean your sump.

In the meantime don't feed the fish, clean their tank and change water before you start this, and just run some oxygenation in their tank and they'll be okay for a day or so.

 

[MrsE88]

I’d personally just use a spare tank or plastic tote as a temporary sump. It’s what I did when I got my 135g back up and running after resealing it. I had to replace a broken baffle in the sump. So I used a spare 20g till the sump was fixed.

I used egg crate to hold up the mechanical filtration splitting the tank in thirds. First section had the intake and mechanical filtration, second was heater and bio, third was the pump/output.
It worked just fine to hold the tank over for a couple weeks.

 

[soupa2]

Thank you MrsE88 Ulu

I’m trying to eliminate breaking down the sump and resealing it.

 

[MrsE88]

Thank you MrsE88 Ulu

I’m trying to eliminate breaking down the sump and resealing it.

Well, for a temporary fix I’m sure you could place something (rock maybe) under the glass to support it. Maybe make a brace with egg crate to support the bottom and come up one side so you can silicone it above the water line?

A complete fix would be best, but there are ways to make due as is. It just won’t be a pretty or permanent fix.

 

[Ulu]

How did the glass break? Was it spontaneous? Or did something hit it? Maybe too much media stuffed in the chamber? There's not much stress there in normal use.

You can certainly just reinforce it by gluing another piece of slightly smaller glass over the crack with silicone, rather than replace the glass, which would be easier. There are other ways.

This all looks very difficult to do based on the clearance above the sump.

But the water still must be drained, the glass dry, scraped clean and carefully washed with fish killing methanol (denatured alcohol) before a good lasting seal will be made.

Some folks have used underwater boat epoxy, but it's toxic until cured, and the glass still must be clean. Really clean.

 

[soupa2]

It’s a baffle that is suspended in the sump. When I silicon it. I can only silicon one side and forcing the rest of the silicon to the other side since I can’t get my fingers in this area anymore. Pictures worth a thousand words. Second picture you’ll see that there is a piece of silicon still attached to the original spot of the sump.