Hi all, I have a 48 gallon hex aquarium a friend gave me, and I finally got around to setting it up after a couple years. Bummer, I found a leak about 2/3 of the way up in one of the vertical seams. I did my best to cut out a 3" section around the leak and fill it with new silicone, but should I have done the whole seam? It's still half full of water and I haven't tried to finish filling it yet to see if it's fixed.
Fixing leaky seams
- Thread starter sparkydave
- Start date
I would just reseal the whole thing if I were you. New silicone does not stick very well to old silicone, so sometimes just doing a spot or a seam does not work. It does not take much to reseal, I had to do it to our 70 gal when it sprung a huge leak. Had it set up in running again in a couple of days, its very easy to do and does not take a lot of effort.
I meant the entire tank, just scrape all the old silicone off of the inside, but don't dig into the seams. Redoing the entire tank will help prevent against future leaks.
There are a lot of great sites on resealing aquariums, I looked at this one for when I resealed my tank. Resealing an Aquarium, by Nick Spinelli
I don't know what kind of silicone you are using, but I was able to reseal my entire 70 with like half a tube of silicone I got from Lowe's (only five bucks), just make sure whatever you use does not have any type of antifungal or mildew protect, just pure silicone.
There are a lot of great sites on resealing aquariums, I looked at this one for when I resealed my tank. Resealing an Aquarium, by Nick Spinelli
I don't know what kind of silicone you are using, but I was able to reseal my entire 70 with like half a tube of silicone I got from Lowe's (only five bucks), just make sure whatever you use does not have any type of antifungal or mildew protect, just pure silicone.
I just redid my 55gallon with GE Silicone 1* 100% Pure Silicone, Window and Door... Funny thing is, after reading tons of people saying it's acceptable, I didn't bother to read the back. Now that I take the time to read it to see how long I need to let it cure, I see that it says it's NOT for aquariums. :?
Glass adhesion rating is a 10 of 10, I still have to wait another 24hours before filling my tank, I assume everyones tube says this on it? I hope so...
Glass adhesion rating is a 10 of 10, I still have to wait another 24hours before filling my tank, I assume everyones tube says this on it? I hope so...
Well, as a small update on the quality of the bond by the product I used, the tank passed the leak test today with flying colors. As far as the label reading "not for aquairums", I'm not sure on how to take that just yet. All I can do is monitor the condition of the water and the health of the fish when I introduce them. That could be a long while as I hear the cement background will make the pH jump off the scale and take several water changes to settle.. I'll let you know how all that goes, but I'd say this stuff is just fine for the fish, they probably label it like that as a precaution or something.
yeah they don't want to be liable if it kills the fish or breaks aquariums, I am sure they have had complaints about that, some ignorant person didn't fix their tank right and so they blame it on the silicone. But like I said I am pretty sure I used the same kinds, I resealed my entire tank back in December? or november and it has been running without any problems, so that's what seven months at least, still got my tank and my fishies (sadly still got my 100+ guppies 
). Glad to hear it past the leak test though!
). Glad to hear it past the leak test though!