My new 2600 gallon plywood tank project
- Thread starter VLDesign
- Start date
Unfortunately, I am still battling leaks. I am trying another leak test tonight. And I have half a quart left. 
Problem is the black pond armor is tough to spot the pin hole leaks.
On a scary, wrecked my weekend, and the past 2 days note. I had a bad time getting these leaks stopped. So bad that at one time I didn’t fully drain the tank of water. Well this move proved to be a bad idea.
What happened was while applying more pond armor some dropped into the water. I figured no big deal right?
After the next day I did another leak test only to see it leak again. So I drained the tank again, came down stairs to check on the drain process and what did I see all over the acrylic windows?
Huge foggy, hazy patches on all 3 windows. WTF?
Turns out that when the wet pond armor dripped into the water I didn’t fully drain is leached a oil type slick that I didn’t notice floating on the top. Well when I drain the tank these “slicks” stuck to the acrylic windows. I tried everything I could think of that might help, nothing got them off the acrylic.
(I will post pictures later tonight)
So I am freaking out, last thing I wanted to do was replace the windows. I called all the local acrylic shop and they all told me the same thing, they didn’t know of anyone who would be willing to try to remove the epoxy slick from the acrylic, and they all thought it would be ruined since the chemicals would have bonded to the windows.
Feeling not so good at this time, I figured I was at least looking at wet sanding the areas down (If not the entire windows) so I figured I was screwed anyways might as well try some denatured alcohol and a micro fiber cloth to wipe off the pond armor residue.
I tried it on a small section and so far it looks like it’s going to work to remove these marks without damage. (Crossing fingers on the larger ones)
So that’s been my life since the site went down.
Problem is the black pond armor is tough to spot the pin hole leaks.
On a scary, wrecked my weekend, and the past 2 days note. I had a bad time getting these leaks stopped. So bad that at one time I didn’t fully drain the tank of water. Well this move proved to be a bad idea.
What happened was while applying more pond armor some dropped into the water. I figured no big deal right?
After the next day I did another leak test only to see it leak again. So I drained the tank again, came down stairs to check on the drain process and what did I see all over the acrylic windows?
Huge foggy, hazy patches on all 3 windows. WTF?
Turns out that when the wet pond armor dripped into the water I didn’t fully drain is leached a oil type slick that I didn’t notice floating on the top. Well when I drain the tank these “slicks” stuck to the acrylic windows. I tried everything I could think of that might help, nothing got them off the acrylic.
(I will post pictures later tonight)
So I am freaking out, last thing I wanted to do was replace the windows. I called all the local acrylic shop and they all told me the same thing, they didn’t know of anyone who would be willing to try to remove the epoxy slick from the acrylic, and they all thought it would be ruined since the chemicals would have bonded to the windows.
Feeling not so good at this time, I figured I was at least looking at wet sanding the areas down (If not the entire windows) so I figured I was screwed anyways might as well try some denatured alcohol and a micro fiber cloth to wipe off the pond armor residue.
I tried it on a small section and so far it looks like it’s going to work to remove these marks without damage. (Crossing fingers on the larger ones)
So that’s been my life since the site went down.
Leak test failed again. Good part about it is I am now down to a single leak and I am at about 24" deep with the water before it started to leak so I have a much smaller search area.
Here is what I am dealing with. WIll try to remove it after I get the leak stopped.
Here is what I am dealing with. WIll try to remove it after I get the leak stopped.
how much would it cost replacing the windows? i guess it is a huge part of your budget on such a huge tank...man that sucks...
really wish you the best of luck!
really wish you the best of luck!
Maybe get some scrap from the place you got your acrylic from and try to recreate the problem, then you can work on solutions with out messing up your main viewing windows.
