More Aquarium Repairs

by Alan Cole · Tuesday, November 27th, 2018

Unfortunately, the most recent set of repairs I made to my failing aquarium didn’t work. I tried emailing Aquatlantis again but had no response from them. They seem to have washed their hands of the matter and clearly don’t want to help. So, I have now had another go at making repairs.

This time I drained the tank once again, cleaned everything off and rather than just seal the original bracing piece to the tank I added some extra reinforcements. Nothing too much as I didn’t want to affect the look of the tank so I’ve added in a couple of extra pieces for the brace to attach to. I only had thin 4mm pieces of glass so these were glued together to make an 8mm reinforcing strip which was then glued in position onto the front and back of the tanks.

: Reinforcements

: Reinforcing strips

This gives a longer attachment area to the sides of the tank which might help adhesion and also means that the brace is attached firmly to these reinforcements rather than just directly to the front and rear of the tank. It’s only a minor difference really as the point of weakness is still the attachment of the reinforcing strips to the front and rear of the tank. The long attachment point might just be enough to make a difference, and the forces will be distributed through the brace in a different manner as well which might help.

Once the sealant attaching the reinforcing strips had cured overnight I attached the original bracing piece to them and reinforced everything with some more sealant. I also added sealant to the outer edges of the reinforcing strips so that I don’t cut myself on them. If I do end up cutting myself on them then I’ll cut some plastic airline in half and glue that to the edges to protect myself. The whole thing was then clamped back into position. There wer clamps to clamp the brace to the reinforcing strips, and the wooden clamp I constructed to pull the front and rear of the tank in towards each other. It was then left to cure.

Clamped for curing

Unfortunately we had a bit of a cold snap while the tank was drained. I can’t have the heater on with the water levels so low so the water temperature fell to around 15ºC which is far too cold for the inhabitants. I didn’t want to fill it too soon though as I wanted to leave the sealant for at least 48 hours to cure. I was gogint o leave it a little longer than that but in the end filled it after 48 hours as there was a casualty in the form of a rummy nosed tetra and the snowflake plec was looking a little stressed by the situation too.

The tank was therefore gradually refilled and slowly warmed back up.

Aquarium Repairs

Now that it has been refilled the fish seem to have recovered and the single Rummy Nosed Tetra seems to have been the only casualty. Time will tell how well the repairs hold up this time but so far (without tempting fate) it is looking OK and feels fairly secure. It’s keeping someone entertained if nothing else.