huge crack/break

[romanorsini]

I bought a 6 foot reef tank which I was planning on installing in my new home. I have never had a tank before. It's a long story, but I severely cracked the either the front or back. The glass is 1/2 inch thick. Can this be epoxied? Am I wasting my time trying? Obviously, I would then make the "fixed side," the back and hide it behind coral. I spoke to a guy today who wants to remove the entire pane and epoxy a new pane but I have read some posts about small cracks and the outlook is bleak. I don't see why it is so difficult. Thanks for your help
Roman

 

[IT-FishGuy]

Cracked Tanks

Depends on the crack, but most of the time you're toast. It would be better to either get a new one or find someone that can repair it properly. A 6 foot tank is a heck of a lot of water to spill out. Also, if you want you may be able to claim it on homeowner's insurance, but that's another expense in the long run.

 

[jsoong]

Welcome to AA!

The only thing you can do is to remove the entire pane & silicone in a new piece. That is going to cost you a pretty penny.

You can't really silicone or otherwise fix a crack in glass & expect it to hold the tremendous pressure in the tank .... Water is over 8lb per gal ..... that is a lot of force in a large tank like yours. Even a small crack will grow & eventually leak. You can basically forget about fixing a large crack.

The only cheap way to fix the tank is to do what I did. I took the tank apart, cut off the area cracked. Cut the rest of the panes to fit & rebuild a smaller tank. <Which I am using as my new sump.. . I got a 40 gal or so tank out of a cracked 60 gal.> Now, this is labor intensive, and I do have a diamond coated blade (bought for cutting concrete pavers before) & a wet saw setup. I don't know how much it will cost for a glass shop to cut the glass for you .... At any rate, the dis-assembly, cutting & reassembly took several weeks (prob 20 hrs of actual work) ... but I figure I'd try something new & have some fun with an old tank that I was going to throw away.

 

[jsoong]

Oh, if this is a brand new tank, you might consider claiming this on buyer's insurance. If you pay with certain premium credit cards, you can claim a refund if the item is broken/stolen/lost within so many days of you buying it.

 

[romanorsini]

Thanks for everyones reply. I very much appreciate your expertise. I'm gonna scrap it and build an acrylic tank. This is an inexpensive replacement. Any advice against an acrylic tank?
Regards
Roman

 

[JohnPaul]

As for "scrapping it," if you literally mean throw the tank out, I would NOT do that right away. While the tank could never hold water safely, the crack could probably be sealed with a layer of sealant and then the tank used as a terrarium; or if the crack is a ways up on the glass then perhaps the tank could be used as a paludarium (mixed terrarium/aquarium setup). So someone who wants to raise turtles, newts, poison dart frogs, snakes, etc. might be interested in buying your tank if you advertise it on Craigslist or something like that. You obviously won't get full price back but I bet you could sell it for around half of what a new one would cost, and thus recoup at least some of your money. Just an idea.