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Reparing a Fogged Biocube Splash Shield


jccaclimber

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I put this on my local forum and a friend who is also a member here suggested I post it here as well.  Here goes:

 

Two and a half years ago I added the Rapid LED Aurora kit to my 29 gallon Biocube.  There were some warnings about the splash shield and UV/violet LED's.  Well, starting around 1.5 years in there were some yellow spots.  Going forwards to 2.5 years the splash shield was cracked and getting pretty opaque.  Here is the critical portion after I cut it out:

58aa6966dc9ba_IMG_4600(Small).JPG.0067c70cd659aa3a3e40dcd89eb4b373.JPG

 

As you can see it needed to be replaced.  Here is the area after I cut it out:

58aa6a3e11a79_IMG_4601(Small).JPG.dcf710fac6adce00df0ba4daae553f4e.JPG

 

And a close-up of the hole:

 

58aa6a3e709b4_IMG_4602(Small).JPG.3cc152cb2403aafe2e498b0aed861e2d.JPG

 

I grabbed what should be a more UV resistant piece of acrylic.  I cut a piece to match.  The only material I had was a bit thicker, so I cut a step.  From the outside it will sit flush.

From the smell cutting it I figured the splash shield was acrylic, but just in case I figured the step would hold in the new acrylic piece.  I rounded the corners to match the hole in the splash shield as well:

58aa6a3ec9a59_IMG_4603(Small).JPG.077439b469a1e9fc4044dfbd70873c4e.JPG

 

Fortunately it was a very snug fit, bordering press fit which I didn't want.  Here it is pressed in.  It would have stayed, but I still wanted to glue it so that it would be sealed and not pop out if someone presses on it:

58aa6a3f272e3_IMG_4604(Small).JPG.09c67af2fc0d78ecfee1df13972d0c9b.JPG

 

Unfortunately it crossed over to amateur hour when I glued it in, so there are some foggy patches.  I'm not sure if I'm going to go through the effort of polishing those out since it isn't visible.  Here it is all glued up.  As you can see the new section is much clearer than the old part:

58aa6a3f7093b_IMG_4605(Small).JPG.81cfabccca43def94eeb28d77c9c4270.JPG

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I used Weld On #3 because I had it on hand already.  I have a decent amount of experience with polishing acrylic from the outside of dry tanks to the inside of running SPS tanks.  I agree that Novus is amazing, I'm just not sure I want to worry about it since it isn't going to be blocking light.  If for some reason it makes a noticeable shadow I'll sand and polish it out.

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On 2/19/2017 at 10:04 PM, jccaclimber said:

Unfortunately it crossed over to amateur hour when I glued it in, so there are some foggy patches.  I'm not sure if I'm going to go through the effort of polishing those out since it isn't visible.  Here it is all glued up.  As you can see the new section is much clearer than the old part:

 

 

Hahahahaha. I think it looks fine!

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 2/24/2017 at 8:42 AM, LbulletM said:

 

Hahahahaha. I think it looks fine!

 

Right? Clear as glass. Pretty amazing how much nicer the light spread was with it repaired. 

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