Problem with Friends tank: told to come here for help

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dbcb314

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Jun 4, 2007
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My friend called me last night when I got home from picking up a tank in Indy with a potentially horrible problem.


He has a 120 or 150 can't remember with assorted american cichlids (I think gt, jd, oscar) and some LSN. The tank is in the corner of a room and the side panel against the wall is covered in green algae.

He decided to clean that finally and once he did and the tank cleared off, he saw a really really small cloudy dot. Almost like the color of silicone. He went to scrape it off and it didn't go anywhere. Inspected it some more and realized it is like "smashed?" He thinks putting a rock or something in the tank he nicked the glass and "dented" it. It really looks like a kinda deep scratch in a circular patter. His words not mine lol.

He wondered if this is going to eventually crack and blow from that point. the dent doesn't go all the way through (you can feel it from the inside but not the outside). I had no idea whether or not it would cause a problem so I thought I should ask.


Any ideas or experience with doing this? He thought maybe he should drain the tank down past that point and put some silicone over it, let it try and cure, and fill the tank back up. Or is this a lost cause and he needs to take the tank down NOW. or can he just ignore it?

thanks for any help in the matter. I have no experience with something like this. biggest worry I have had is a scratch lol. I am the fish "guru" among some friends... i dont tell them i just come to this website to get info lol.

I asked for a pic and he sent a phone one over and yhou can't see anything. He said it is like a millimeter in diameter

I saw another picture were he put something black in the tank behind the "spot" and it looks smaller than a BB.



any help? Will this be fine or is he screwed?
 
It sounds like it chipped a fine layer of glass off.
Lay a straight edge across the spot and see how much was removed.
If it's very minute I wouldn't worry about it.
Silicone over it would be a waste of time regardless of the size.
 
That "dent" (chip is a better word) is now the weak spot. IF (not when but if) the tank is going to blow out it will be at that point.

It is now more critical than before that the tank be seated flat on it's stand, and it's stand is seated flat on a flat floor. Many people mistakenly thing that being "level" is the critical importance, but it is not. Being flat is...

Any torque on the glass causes stress and that dent/chip is the weak spot that will begin a crack under too much stress...

If the weight of water alone is enough to turn the chip into a crask, then the solution is to spread out the pressure. To do this you would want to silicone a piece of glass over top of the chip. A 3"+ x 3"+ piece of glass shoudl be plenty for a chip this small. but keep in mind this will do little to nothing to resist a crack caused by torque in the glass.

Simply adding a dot of silicone on top of the chip will do nothing. The single benefit this will offer is it will be a buffer to protect the weak spot from being again bumped with a rock. If I were going to drain & repair the tank I would definitely silicone a piece of glass over it.
 
Call an auto glass guy out and do a chip repair on it. The repair should help to reinforce the weak points in the chip and prevent any cracks from developing.

I have a neighbor who does owns a autoglass company and I have had him patch a chip my 125G tank, It has been up and running on my 2nd floor for 3 years now with no issues and once filled with water you can't tell it has been repaired/damaged.

I drained the water down about 3" below the chip and knocked on his door when I was ready. Waited about 2 hours after the resin had cured to refill. There were no signs of illness in the fish(Discus) after the repair.
 
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