my new 125

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

drummerj

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Aug 31, 2006
Messages
125
Location
NH
As everyone who read my post about the 125 knows i purchased a fairly decent used 125 gallon aquarium. It had a tiny leak in it, so, I resiliconed it and found that I had fixed the wrong place, so I figured, what the heck, I'll just redo the entire front of the tank. So I stripped it clean of silicone, and cleaned it off real nice, then put some more silicone on and let it sit for a day. The next day, my brother and I filled the tank up, and it was doing great! My brother said "I think it'll be ok". Not 3 seconds after the utterance of those words, six jets of water spewed forth from the base of the tank. Both of us stood in utter shock. What to do!? Before I knew it, there was a 60 gallon lake on my floor. We ran back and forth with 5 gallon buckets, scooping water out and pouring them into the sump pump in the floor, trying to use our python to syphon the water( to no avail), and using a wetvac to get the water out before it got to the floor. The power strip to my entire stereo/tv setup AND aquarium stuff is all there in the water, so I had to kill the entire area. My couch was drenched, my drums, kinda not so good sounding when soaked. Whew! Normally, I would be mad about all that stuff happening, but all I can do is laugh, really hard. So basically, wait wicked long after siliconing, and, I hope everyone got a good laugh out of my misfortune! :lol:
 
You made the mistake of not stripping all the sealant off the inside of the tank before resealing. New silicone doesn't adhere very well to old silicone, making it difficult to get a good seal. It is very important to get off all the old silicone, and clean well with acetone or alcohol, before applying the new. A good rule of thumb, is that when your sure you have scraped all the old silicone off, get a new razor blade and go over it all again. Personally, I like to go slightly beyond the old seal with the new, to get onto virgin glass. Also, the application needs to be done carefully to avoid voids, and it needs to be smotthed to ensure no trapped air. Cure time is relative to the size of the bead, but again, if you leave it an extra day or so, it may help. Better luck next time, but don't be dissuaded by the lack of success this time.
 
haha i scraped all the old silicone off with a razor, vacuumed it out, then cleaned it with alcohol. When i took the silicone off after it leaked it was not dry underneath. I dont think i waited long enough lol. Either way, there is no way im giving up on this tank, ive invested too much into it (aka i bought it lol)
 
Back
Top Bottom