Re-sealing an old 125 glass tank

[Egon]

My Goonch tank started leaking Monday. It just started leaking for no reason, about a drip every 5 seconds filling a 5 gallon bucket a day. It's in a fish room, no carpet, so I wasn't really to motivated. I put a couple sponge filters in the tank and planed on moving the Goonch over to another tank this weekend......

Thursday after work, half the water was on the floor

I put an empty 125 on the floor and transfered the remaining water, Goonch, and sponge filters to the new tank. Got some measurements of the future monster and started cleaning the leaker.

Pics: The Goonch tank half filled and half on the floor, big fan in the window.
New tank on the floor
Goonch measurements
Dirty tank, plants and gravel removed.

The re-sealing process next post...

Crap, pictures won't upload????

 

[Egon]

Crap Pics still not uploading????

 

[Egon]

Still can't upload

Test filling today, crossing fingers

 

[Egon]

Test fill went great!
Tank half empty floor wet
New tank on ground and transferring remaining water
The Goonch
Closer look at the Goonch
Empty tank before cleaning
Starting to remove all glue and super clean with acetone
The clean as new tank
Test filling

When repairing a leak I found removing all the silicon and cleaning the area thoroughly before applying the new silicon works. I have never had luck trying to repair the leak area. I just remove all the old silicon, not the silicon holding the tank together but the stuff sealing the corners. I use a straight edge razor and peel it all off then clean with acetone. When I apply the new glue I run a bead into the corner and then follow it with a wet finder tip spreading the glue between the two panels. I do the bead first through out the whole tank and then smooth it out with my finger. There will be a lot of excess silicon, just keep wiping your finger tip onto a paper towl. Every time I do this I learn a new trick, this time it was wetting my finger tip before spreading/smoothing the glue. Give the glue plenty of time to dry, at lease 24 hours (the most difficult part IMO).

I'm moving the Goonch tomorrow, hopefully he likes his new digs....

 

[Joe M]

Looks good man. I'm jealous of the goonch. He looks amazing. I just resealed my 125 that started leaking. Not as hard as I thought it would be.

Is the tank gonna be heavily planted again like before? I think it looked cool and the fish must have loved it.

 

[Egon]

Yeah I'm going to put some of the plants back in. Most went into the trash but they will grow back in a month lol. I rotated the tank too so the returns are on the side with the window. Before the intakes were on the window side and I was getting plant roots in my plumbing lol.
I'll take some more pics tonight after it's all set up

 

[Joe M]

Yeah I'm going to put some of the plants back in. Most went into the trash but they will grow back in a month lol. I rotated the tank too so the returns are on the side with the window. Before the intakes were on the window side and I was getting plant roots in my plumbing lol.
I'll take some more pics tonight after it's all set up

Yeah, do that. I want to see it all set up.