tell if inner seal is bad?

[Visionist]

I bought a used 35g with the intent to reseal it, the tank's silicone is stripped down now but as I was cleaning the glass with alcohol(and I used a little bit too much) I noticed a little bit seem through the bottom. Right around this area there does appear to be some hard water stains that I hadn't noticed before. Are the inner seals shot? or is this just because the inner seals are not supposed to be water tight? Id rather not tear the all the panels apart and build the tank over but I will if its just going to leak with a basic reseal.

 

 

 

 

 

[jbb]

I've never seen someone just remove the inner silicone before. I'm not sure that the new silicone will attach to the old to form a proper seal which means all of it will have to come out. I could be wrong though .

[Benny314]

I put new filet seals in my 330l system when I got it. But it does need the silicon holding the glass together to be in good nick.

If the tank bonding silicon is compromised then you need to break down the whole tank, as the pressure that will seal the new filet seals to the glass will blow the compromised joints and you'll have a pane of glass fall out of the tank and a wet floor.

[ajmckay]

Hate to say it but this is something that you'll just have to decide for yourself. Without personally inspecting it I don't think any responses you get here will be anything more than an opinion or "what I would do" type situation. Toward that train of thought though - if there were any indication that the tank seals may be compromised beyond re-doing the internal fillets I wouldn't use the tank until I could verify that the seals are working or I remove and replace the silicone.

 

Some things that may help: Is it possible the water is coming from the outside of the tank and it's not really in the seal between the glass but instead the seal between the glass and plastic frame (which isn't important other than keeping the bottom of the tank on).

 

Do you know how old the tank is? I've messed with some pretty old tanks and in the cases where the fillets needed to be re-done the silicone between the glass was always in good condition - in other words even with the fillets having deteriorated I didn't see any degradation of the silicone between the glass in aquariums 20-30 years old. So it's possible it's been there since manufacturing like maybe water was introduced too quickly, not enough silicone was used, or the surfaces weren't prepped right. Alternatively someone tried to separate the glass and then stopped and decided to re-seal, and at some point some water got past the fillets.

 

You could always leak test it outside for a week or so and see if you notice any leaking. If I did a test like that and there was no leaking I might be inclined to trust the tank and the existing seals.

[ndrobey]

It might be cheaper and easier to wait for a Petco dollar a gallon aquarium sale.

[Benny314]

Yeah always worth a good long test once a reseal has been done.

I had my system sat in the garage for a month almost full (40l short of full) after I put new filets in to be sure I hadn't cocked up.

[Visionist]

tanks here do not show up at 1$ per gallon ever, a 40g breeder is 120$.

The tank is probably about 10 years old. I cant tell for sure what the white stuff in the picture is, I'm assuming its hard water stains but it also just seems a bit like dirt.