Help Leaky Aquarium

[Ndavis]

My girlfriend is giving me a 75 gallon aquarium that leaks at one of the seams near the bottom of the tank She tried to seal on top of the sealant but I'm pretty sure that you have to strip the old sealant off and put a fresh layer on. How long should I let the sealant dry before filling with water to see if it still leaks? How long should I leave it filled to make sure that it doesn't leak? Any help would be greatly appreciated

 

[Danimal]

Here are a couple of articles that might help with your problem. They both look pretty informative!

Article One

Article Two

 

[TurbineSurgeon]

There are a couple of decent threads here as well:

How I repaired my 75 gallon

About choosing silicone

 

[Ndavis]

Sweet I Fixed It

Thanx for the info Danimal and TurbineSurgeon. I used aquarium sealant to fix my leaky tank and so far it's not leaking. I let it cure for 24 hours and it's almost been 24 hours since I put 3 inches of water in it with cardboard underneath the whole tank. I am going to fill it all the way to see if it can take the pressure of a full tank to make absolutely sure before I start to cycle it. I just found 1" thick slate rock for aquascaping for $0.27 lb and 1 1/4 " for $0.47 lb does anyone know if that's a good deal? It's coming from a natural stone company in Shanty Bay Ontario

 

[TurbineSurgeon]

Sounds like a great deal to me. Just be careful when using slate, because it sometimes has sharp edges that can injure your fish.

 

[Ndavis]

If the slate does have sharp edges I will sand them down with 220 grid sandpaper and rinse them to remove the dust.I'm also planning to put a thin layer of styrafoam on the bottom before anything else.

 

[TurbineSurgeon]

I have never heard of putting styrofoam on the bottom of the tank. What is the purpose of it?

 

[Ndavis]

So far I have found 3 reasons that make sense. 1 it spreads the pressure of the weight of the rocks 2 it protects the glass should the rocks fall and 3 it prevents the rocks from slipping

 

[TaffyFish]

Are you going to have fish in there that might dig up the substrate and then the styrofoam?

Regarding the slate and sharp edges, I used to take a hammer to them until relatively smooth to the touch then rinse off any dust. Never thought of sanding them down, strikes me as a potentially timeconsuming method.

 

[Ndavis]

I haven't even got the slate yet but if just taking a hammer to them works that's great. I just want them to be smooth enough so that my fish can't hurt their scales. As for the digging fish I haven't decided what I'm going to put in the tank yet. I have to do some researching on some of the fish that I'm thinking about getting. I would like to try to make my tank look as natural as possible with live plants slate rock caves