I know that they use silicone to seal glass aquariums but I noticed three times recently that even using silicone made for aquariums to seal rocks to rocks or plastic plants to rocks the seal after prolonged imersion months in use seems to come apart rather easily w/o much effort. How can this be??? I only use aquarium safe silicone products that state as such. Are tank makers using a stronger grade silicone and if so where can I obtain it for future use? Thanks!
Silicone questions
- Thread starter jft
- Start date
issue isn't strength of silicone, but rather that it was never intended to bond to rocks or plastic. try pond foam.
People have used silicone for decades bonding rock for aquariums so I really do not understand your point and I was wondering about if there were different grades of silicone and if not pretty amazing will hold glass together but is weak with rockwork and other structures w/o water pressure exerted on them.
Hello; I have used silicone to bond rock (mostly slate) to rock and rock to glass many times over several decades. Some have held together so well that it is very hard to separate them. I have a number of glass panels with slate still strongly adheared to them that were decorations for tanks from the 1970's. I made a glass breeding trap with plastic coated nylon screen material some 20 +years ago that was bonded with silicone. It is still intact. Some slate pieces bonded in the same manner did not hold together very well and did come apart quite soon. I suspect that it has much to do with how clean the surfaces are. Dust and such on the surface of materials may prevent a good bond. Some rock has a friable surface and that surface may simply let go from the deeper layers. I have not tried to silicone plastic much at all, so perhaps the surface may need to be roughed up a bit to get a good bond?
Maybe the surfaces are not being cleaned properly. I friend Tommy attaches plants to rick in his aquarium and if he is having any problems I just have not been told.
hello guys I suspect that in some cases the surfaces were not clean as you stated but in most cases I tried the surfaces were clean as far as I could tell, I did use different brands as I look back on it and perhaps that factored in aquarium safe but not strong enough to be used as a permanent aquarium sealer. I have used plumbers Goop also w/o a problem for five years in both reef,marine and freshater tanks and no toxic issues i just let it cure for 72 hrs before I place in use, Go figure/
Hello; Another thought has to do with the effect that moisture may play in the adhesion of silicone.. I have used the same materials, same silicone but sometimes have gotten very different levels of adhesion. I now make sure a tank is very dry when resealing as I began to suspect dampness was affecting the results some years ago.