It was bound to happen...

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Racersk

Racersk

Piranha
MFK Member
Apr 22, 2010
1,153
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Covington
I got this Great deal off Craigslist about 2 months ago, it was a 90 gallon acrylic/glass bottom tank that the person was selling for $50. I looked at it at the house of the seller and it was holding water, so I figured cool beans sweat deal!

Well we all know that good deals sometimes go sour....

I came home yesterday with water leaking out of the garage, where my tanks are, I thought 'Oh $#!t!', so I go inside to investigate... My middle tank is about 1/2 and the filter is running dry. CRAP!!:nilly:

After several hours of disassembly I found that I had a leak in the back corner, and after even more investigation I had a split in the acrylic seal about 6 " long. This tank had glass tubes that run down the corners for air lines, and this glass tube had come loose on one side, allowing water to creep into the mechanical part of the silicone that held the tank together. After the first attempt to keep that tube a half filled tank leaked...Damn... I just pulled that tube and all the corner silicone and redid it...48 hours till fish, they are gonna hate me!:cry:

Luckily I am still fishkeeping for a friend and had 2 larger totes to fill up and keep the inhabitants in but this sucks...I JUST got finished setting everything up and 2 days later I have water everywhere and the wife noticed the water on the drywall, Still got the fans running...:(
 
Bummer! Hope the 125 glass sitting in my living room of my rented house with hardwood floors doesn't decide to do this! Knock on wood... floors.
 
Ge silicone 1 and letting it dry overnight, seems to holding, silicone sticks to everything, hands, pants...:)

Fellow Washingtonian... Go Storm! lol...

Any suggested other products, other than a complete teardown pro reseal that I cant afford. I want to get my fish out of the totes...
 
Did you say this is a 90 gallon Acrylic tank with a Glass bottom? Must be a hybrid.
 
It is.

Acrylic sides and a glass bottom, 48x18x24, with acrylic bracing across the top and middle at 21". It has (had) mirrored pieces trimming out the top, 4" on top, 2" on the bottom, mostly broken over the years, but it was easy enough to take those off. I left the front pieces on as they cover the substrate and bracing.

acrylic_glass.jpg


Here's what it used to look like, this is the other side.
glasstube.jpg


Heres the repair, it'll be covered so looks weren't that critical.
repair.jpg



Filling it up today to see if the repairs good...Only moving it back once, this sucker was HEAVY with 100lbs of sand in the bottom. But it is the lightest tank I have, being it is half acrylic.
 
It could have been worse. These are in the garage, so all the water drained out to the driveway. This is a cold water tank, so the fish were fine, albeit in a lot less water than usual.

The floors and walls are as dry as they are gonna get, and it gave me a chance to reconfigure my overflow, up pipe disconnect, and adding lava rock to my megafilter. Yeah it is a pretty big inconvience, but it was really only mine and the tank inhabitants-But thats what totes are for, right? ;)
 
The timebomb has been reset!

I have the tank back in business and all inhabitants in place, they were getting 50% WC's in the totes so putting them in the tank with existing media will be fine. These are pond fish and so far used to the water from the tap, and they are going to their actual home in a week or so.

So far I'm loving my DIY megatube. I have upped the anti with bio with the addition of a lavarock stage to the canister. This is basically an indoor pond filter running on a 90 gallon 'pond'.

I also hung up my water changing filter station that I will be hooking up to the house water heaters in/outs for water changes and cleaning, this station was used for film processors(xrays) and used a filter (pleated sediment filter) and a shower adjuster temp knob with temp gauge for washing water for films and cleaning the processor, should be better than what I am providing now, plus theres a kitchen sprayer built in...10'Extension needed! Adding the correct temp water is going to get easier, plus I can plumb in the fill lines to the individual tanks as needed. (Auto water change anyone?!)

Now I have to configure a drain barrel for plant watering with the used water. recycling to the plants/future pond is better than the current draining to the driveway or corner of the lawn.
 
aclockworkorange;4479164; said:
Bummer! Hope the 125 glass sitting in my living room of my rented house with hardwood floors doesn't decide to do this! Knock on wood... floors.
Click to expand...


cough cough, im in this situation too...:headbang2
 
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