Repairing acrylic "whitening of a joint"

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Wiksta

Wiksta

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jul 1, 2015
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I have a 180 gallon acrylic. 32Wx64Lx21.5H. I am looking into having it professionally repaired but also thinking of doing it myself. Does anyone have expertise in working with acrylic? I was thinking to drill very small holes in the seam to then use the glue in a needle to get in the seam. Then get a piece of acrylic roughly 5" long, 1" wide and thick. Glue it to the inside of the tank where the seam whitened. Round off the edges obviously. Am i on the right track or have no idea what i'm doing? :)

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I've had the same issues with one of my tank (340 gal). I drained my tank and bought a square acrylic rod the height of the tank and welded it, using Weld on #4, on the two sides which was showing seam separation like yours. Idealistically you would want to do this to all sides of the tank but realistically for me it wasn't going to happen. I also used a syringe/needle and put some Weld on #4 on the outside seam where the separation was... as I had more than one, some took the weld on right in capillary while others didn't take as well. Either way tank has been holding up like a champ with no problems. I've also repaired others with weld on 16 with no problems. Hope this helps as I did a lot of research before any attempts and there seems to be lots of ways.
 
drain and clean the tank, especially the seams. rubbing alcohol works. Easiest way is to either buy acrylic corner bead (no idea if its actually called that, just going by my drywall knowledge) and use weld on #40 to weld it into the corner, OR tip the tank carefully onto that corner and simply pour mixed weld on #40 into the seam and allow it to weld/dry. You might as well do all 4 corners when the tanks empty.

Wednesday13 I believe does the latter of the two methods with his repairs.
 
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I sent Wednesday a pm. Adding some more pics for reference. Thanks for pointing me in l his direction!

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pacu mom said:
Are you sure about using alcohol? I was told that alcohol, ammonia products like Windex could degrade the acrylic.
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light application won't affect the acrylic to a degree it becomes an issue. I've used it before with no noticeable degradation. you are correct though those products will eat through acrylic used in excess.
 
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Wiksta said:
I was thinking the same thing...
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feel free to use a different method to clean it as you and pacu mom are correct but again light application that is cleaned off after using it, in my experience doesn't cause harm.
 
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