$10 55 gallon tank.

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Lumberjack

Aquarium Advice Regular
Joined
Sep 2, 2014
Messages
65
Location
Apex, NC
so long story short, i picked up this beautiful 55 gallon 4ft in perfect conditon. other than the trim and the seams/seals. it was leaking about 4 weeks ago. i have plastidipped a background and tore out all of the old silicone. it was leaking when i tested it (hey it was $10) i waited for the silicone to dry (GE II for the windows and doors) i let it cure for about 3 days. then filled it up and added all of my fish and got it running. then 3 weeks later i come home to water all over my floor and it leaking into my garage from my room. again?!? WHY!?!?! :banghead:
had to move all of my fish to my 30 gal ASAP.

are there any better sealants that will last for years if not forever? or can anyone tell me what may have caused the leak? i did all of seams and seals thickly and strong. the stand i have is an old dresser that someone gave me.
i had many colors of gravel mixed together. 4 real rocks. 1 fake one. some plants, and a fake skull.
 

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I would imagine you didn't get the surface cleaned well enough when you pulled your silicone out. Any residue of silicone will not allow fresh silicone to adhere. Cutting the old silicone from inside the tank and squirting in new to "gasket" over the the mating edges and old silicone between the panes can lead to issues as you found out.

Simply you didn't seal it right. Few do because it is a lot of effort and many get away doing it easy way. In my book only proper way to reseal a tank is to completely dismantle the tank. All panes removed, scraped clean, then cleaned with appropriate solvent to get good mating surfaces. You then put it back together.
 
on a scale of 1-10 how difficult could that be? i read up that Momentive RTV-108 is the best stuff to use when rebuilding or any use for that matter. what solvents am i going to need? any instruction threads or pages where i can learn to do this correctly? where could i buy a new bottom trim because it is broken? (sorry for the questions, noob right here)
 
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