Tank bottom not flush

[CLDarnell]

If any of the lower edges of any of the sides are lower than your bottom glass, you absolutely will have a failure. Your sketch sort of shows this. The weight of your water column will rest entirely on the bottom piece, shearing the silicone bead. The side pieces mearly hold the water "in". The bottom holds the water "up". Silicone has great adhesive strength, but almost zero shear strength. They don't build bridges with silicone

As the others have suggested, styrofoam will "fix" the problem. It will compress wherever the sides are lower than the bottom piece. The bottom itself has a large surface area and the styrofoam will compress and distribute the weight.

Good luck!

 

[CLDarnell]

Sorry to post back to back, but I just looked at my 150. I don't feel comfortable giving you any advice that leads to the feeling that everything is going to be OK.

Without the trim on the bottom, I believe you are going to have over 1,200 pounds of water, fish, substrate and decorations on your floor.

Sorry, but you really should put the trim back on or have a professional tank builder re-install it.

Good luck...

 

[mike0179]

thanks everybody for the replies! There was a solid reason why I took the trim off in the first place. (im not just crazy i promise ) My original plan was to have the sides of the stand meet flush with the glass of the tank and then use base-board trim (instead of the cheap plastic trim of the aquarium) to go all the way around the stand. And for the record it DOES look just awesome like that!

Had I known the tank was build the way it is, I would have never tried it that way though.

Ill end up putting the trim back on AND use a small piece of extruded styrofoam because now that I've seen the way this is built i don't have the best feelings about it.

I just can not believe that a piece of 1/8" plastic and a thin smear of silicone is what kept this thing from sheering itself apart!