Fixing silicone on inside of glass tank?

Laura and Jim will be hosting the May meeting this Saturday the 12th and it will be the usual of food, drinks, raffle and fun.
 
Doors will be open at 6:00 pm for social talk and the meeting will start at 7:00.  Parking gets a little tight and the city says you can't park on 4th but there is a parking lot a block away.   Meeting is usually held in the backyard so feel free to bring your favorite lawn chair, weather permitting of course.

If you need address/directions, contact a club member.

Best if you park at Mini Mall (where the spaghetti establishment use to be)
 
You will get to see his new frag tank set up in the making.
 
Hope to see you there!

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[Nate C.]

Has anyone ever had to fix the silicone around the corners where two pieces of glass meet on a glass tank?  We are working on getting the 155 ready to go in, and as we have been cleaning up the inside of the tank, we've noticed that there are areas where the silicone is pulling loose on the inside edges.  I'm just trying to get some ideas on what the best way to fix it would be.  Should I just clean it really well and silicone over it again, or should I trim the loose stuff away and then re-silicone...or is there something else even better I can do?

Thanks for any advice!

Nate

[Les]

Nate,
I once was given a tank that someone tried to fix by just re-calking over. By the time I got it I had to take all the panes out and scrape them till clean and then reassemble the tank. That is my only experience with glass tank repair. Hopefully, someone has had a better time with it than I.

les

[angelscrx]

I had my old 29g spring a leak on me once.  I sent the wife to the store bought another 29g and swapped everything over.  I took the now old 29g and took the silicone out of the entire length of the corner where it leaked and resealed it.  Gave the tank away and no reports of it leaking to this day.  That was a year ago.  If it is in need of repair I would do the whole thing now that it is still empty rather than spring a leak later and have to break it down.

[Les]

Nate,
I talked with Rick about this last night, he said the tank wasn't leaking. That being the case, I would strongly recommend leaving things alone. If it aint broke then don't fix it.

[Nate C.]

No, it's not leaking, but there are spots where it looks like it's close to getting there.  If any of you guys with experience with glass tanks want to come take a look...I'd be happy for a first-hand evaluation!  As mentioned, I'd rather be sure now than have to take everything down again in a year or two.

[The Apprentice]

Like Angel I have a 29 gallon Tank set up off my 150 Nate and it leaked on my inital set up so I wiped it down with Demin water then i used  Aquairum Silicon to seal it up and i haven't had any trouble but this is Quite alot smaller tank  :? So keep up on your reserch and i hope you get some Beter Info..Jeff

No, it's not leaking, but there are spots where it looks like it's close to getting there.  If any of you guys with experience with glass tanks want to come take a look...I'd be happy for a first-hand evaluation!  As mentioned, I'd rather be sure now than have to take everything down again in a year or two.

[Nate C.]

From what I'm reading this is just an inner seal that is coming loose.  Everything I've read points to taking the entire inner seal out and replacing it with new Silicone (100% Silicone...no mildew inhibitors).  So...I'm thinking pretty hard about going ahead and doing that just so I've got the piece of mind that it's as good as it's going to be when we install it.

Wish us luck...and if any of you with experience doing this are around and want to watch me get started...I'd be happy for an advice!

EDIT:  Nevermind on that...after a response from WetWebMedia, sounds like I'm better off not messing with it.  They said that inner seal is more a "protection for the actual seal...usually from razor blade algae scrapers and other sharp objects,"  so...I'm not going to mess with it unless it springs a leak on me down the road sometime....and then I'll deal with it from there.

[Rico]

Nate,

I think you are smart to not mess with it.  Like I said earlier, the most I would do is clean under the loose area and squirt in some new black RTV.  Water is not an issue as it actually helps RTV cure.  After applying the RTV use some strong duct tape or something to hold down the loose area.

The other thing you could do is contact the mfg, All Glass mfg and ask their opinion.

Rick

[Nate C.]

Rick,

Knowing that it's not going to transfer into the main seal area makes me much happier.  I think I'll just leave it completely alone...doesn't sound like it'll be worth trying to put new material in.  Cured silicone doesn't stick to new...so it wouldn't seal things up again anyway.