Silicone bubbling and peeling

[calrissian]

I am breaking down my 75 gallon planted tank and have noticed the silicone on the inside corners is bubbling, peeling, deteriorating, or just gone. The actual silicone that adheres the glass panes together is still fine - just the bead smeared on the inside corners. The tank is probably 15-18 years old and I would like to keep it and use it again some day. Can I just remove the interior silicone, clean and reapply or will this lead to further problems down the road? If I have to disassemble the entire tank and reapply silicone adhesive to the pane joints - it's probably not worth keeping since Petco sells 75s for $75 dollars now...right?

[Tamberav]

Don't think Petco sells 75 gallon tanks at the dollar per gallon sale that I have ever seen, biggest is 55 I think.

 

I had a leaky tank that I removed the inner silicone and reapplied and used it for a long time without any issues. I had a second tank that was so old the original siliconje was yellow so I redid that one too, again no problem. I guess I wouldn't consider it risk free though vs a brand new tank.

 

I would not take the glass panes apart, would be hard to get those water tight again without any bubbles, ect.

 

My rimless tank ONLY has the silicone between the panes of glass so not sure if the silicone inside on cheaper tanks is just extra protection or what not.

 

 

On 7/13/2017 at 6:01 PM, calrissian said:

I am breaking down my 75 gallon planted tank and have noticed the silicone on the inside corners is bubbling, peeling, deteriorating, or just gone. The actual silicone that adheres the glass panes together is still fine - just the bead smeared on the inside corners. The tank is probably 15-18 years old and I would like to keep it and use it again some day. Can I just remove the interior silicone, clean and reapply or will this lead to further problems down the road? If I have to disassemble the entire tank and reapply silicone adhesive to the pane joints - it's probably not worth keeping since Petco sells 75s for $75 dollars now...right?

 

[calrissian]

My local Petco started selling 75s for $75 during the $1/gallon sales. Maybe they aren't doing that everywhere. Regardless...thanks for the advice. I'm kinda under the same impression as you, that the inner silicone bead is just some sort of extra protection against leakage.