Fish Tank Rebuild – Back to the Drawing Board

Well, the more substantial repairs that I made to my Aquatlantis fish tank didn’t last long. I refilled it earlier in the week hoping that the repairs would hold up. Within about 8 hours though they had failed so I’m back to square one.

The sealant holding the brace to the side of the tank came apart once again.

Failed Sealant

Failed Sealant

It’s not surprising really as there us no way that a small strip of sealant is going to hold back the weight of 200 litres of water. It’s just not a very good design. Trouble is I don’t feel safe leaving it without the brace as the tank then bows at the front and back which results in a combined distortion of about 1cm. Imagine the mess it would make if the tank failed completely.

So, I’m now at a loss for what to do. I’ve currently placed the temporary wooden brace that I used to hold things in place while the sealant set back over the top of the tank to stop it bowing.

Wooden Brace

Wooden Brace

My only options are to try again with the sealant and maybe try to find something better than the sealant I used, or possibly to buy a completely new tank. I don;t really fancy the latter though as it will be expensive and very time consuming as I’ll have to start from scratch once again with the aqua-scaping and the planting etc. I can’t leave it as it is though as the wooden brace is pretty ugly and it restricts access to the tank as the lids on the hood can’t be opened. The whole point of buying the nice, expensive integrated tank and hood was so that it looked good in the office. Having some offcuts of wood holding it together isn’t quite the look I was going for!

I’ll email Aquatlantis again to see what they suggest.

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Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.