Dustin Pedretti Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 Well here we go again. As most of you know im not to good about keeping up with these things with good pictures but here it is anyways. Brought home my new 120g I picked up from niko's Its 2' by 4' (awesome floor room for live stock) with a coast to coast(well almost...it covers about 3/4 of the back glass length wise) overflow and a recirculation system in the bottom of the tank that I bought a jeabo dc3000 for. I thought this pump could be used out side the sump but I was wrong...so I plugged it up and we will see how long it lasts. I need to do some more work on the recirculation plumbing like adding valves and stuff but im going to play with it later. I got it home and started messing with it. Got it most of the way filled and did my rock work and put my sand in. Im going with some pretty large "sand" mixed with crushed coral...dont like the sand storms my wp 40's kicked up in the 220g. This is right after I dropped the sand in. And this is after it cleared up the two tone is the halides warming up. Stocking will be (if I can afford it) higher end mixed reef and a little flock of tangs and other colorful fish I havnt decided on yet and a few clams. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dustin Pedretti Posted January 11, 2015 Author Share Posted January 11, 2015 And here it is today Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jmvanness Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 I'm jealous. I was eyeing that tank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niko's Reef Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 Looking good bro. Let's see some pics of the skin and stand. Get it done? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dustin Pedretti Posted January 13, 2015 Author Share Posted January 13, 2015 Not totally there yet travis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
victoly Posted January 13, 2015 Share Posted January 13, 2015 Oh god. Not again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dustin Pedretti Posted March 21, 2018 Author Share Posted March 21, 2018 So, since I'm rebuilding this tank I think it's appropriate that I just hijack and continue on... Around the 15th of January 2015, this tank split a seam. At 4am. In my living room. Luckily, I was up watching a Harry Potter marathon with a couple of my sister in laws and I got to see one of them get sprayed in the face by fresh salt water as the rest of us looked on horrified at what had just happened. I mean, what do you do in that situation? 120 gallons of water in a glass box is sitting in your living room with no where to go and it pretty much explodes with a strong spray of water all over the place. So, we grabbed buckets and filled them as good as we could while the other two held pressure on the front glass pane so it didn't totally fail. And this is what I was left with. I'll tell you what. That was a sound that I will never forget. That crack. To say I was upset is an understatement. I had just invested a lot of money in a set up that I thought would be awesome. I drained the rest of the tank, took the rocks and sand out, sold everything alive and washed my hands of the whole thing. I was done and disgusted. Along with buying this tank and a lot of supplies to set it up, we had just had a baby and there was no way I would be able to afford to pay someone to reseal and start back up. Not to mention how upset my wife was...she still brings it up. Though I never said it to anyone, I believed this problem to be caused by the seller. I was wrong. As the years have gone by, I have gone over how I loaded this in the truck to bring it home and remembered the points at which I put pressure, it was me. I pulled way to hard at the top, exactly where it split. I did not think of this at the time because of the financial loss I had just gone through but I am now confident that I was the cause and not the seller. So, here I am 3.5 years later and I'm ready to get back into the game. I plan to reseal this myself instead of getting another to do it. While I'm at it, I will put some support bracing at the top to prevent this from happening again. So, here is where I'm at right now. I have the front pane pulled, I just need to clean and reseal installing the two new pieces of glass for bracing at the same time. This tank has been stored inside and I have checked the other seals and everything seems to be okay. My plan is to get it sealed, then fill it in the back yard and leave it for a week to ensure this does not happen again. I also got a stand built for it...its huge... My 6 year old above. It has 1 coat of primer on it to prevent it from rusting while I set the rest of the tank up. I'm thinking of painting it some crazy weird color like zombie green or something for character, but we will see. Anyways, that's all I've got for right now. I plan on taking this build super slow so it may be a while between updates, just hang in there. For me, this is a lot of the fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mFrame Posted March 21, 2018 Share Posted March 21, 2018 Wow man, I never heard the whole story about what happened. Kudos for keeping it and trying again! I'll be following along. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimbo662 Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 Whoa...I don't think I remember seeing the pics. Good luck with it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jolt Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 A real nightmare that one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 I'm not going to sleep well for weeks now! If you're going to reseal it yourself RTV 108 has double the tensile strength of the generic stuff and is about $12-$14 a 10 oz tube online,. If you don't mind the price and color RTV 167 is about 4X stronger. I'm know I'm being redundant saying this but be sure to scrape off all the old silicone and clean it well with alcohol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dustin Pedretti Posted March 23, 2018 Author Share Posted March 23, 2018 On 3/22/2018 at 9:03 AM, Timfish said: I'm not going to sleep well for weeks now! If you're going to reseal it yourself RTV 108 has double the tensile strength of the generic stuff and is about $12-$14 a 10 oz tube online,. If you don't mind the price and color RTV 167 is about 4X stronger. I'm know I'm being redundant saying this but be sure to scrape off all the old silicone and clean it well with alcohol. I think the red isn't really up my alley but I may look into the 108. Double strength is nothing to laugh at. Especially after my experiences... Thanks Tim for the heads up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dustin Pedretti Posted March 24, 2018 Author Share Posted March 24, 2018 So I was looking more at the tank and I think I'm going to have to peel this whole thing apart and redo all of it. Thoughts? On a slightly similar note. Has anyone ever seen these joints with dyed silicone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted March 25, 2018 Share Posted March 25, 2018 First picture, that's an unusual number of air bubbles for just a few inches of joint. Good thing is there's a second strip of glass on the inside so the joint is a lot larger than just a single butt joint and is using both the shear strength and tensile strength of the silicone. Second picture, change in color is from the thicker joint where it looks like one of the inside reinforcing pieces wasn't pushed into the joint well. One concern with thicker joints is it lets them flex more which could be a potential source of problems if the glass is twisting or torquing with the weight of water and uneven joints. A lot of tanks if you look close have little precured silicone disks stuck in the joint so the joint is a consistant thickness. Third picture, that looks like one huge long air bubble. I would want to redo that joint. Never heard of dyed silicone but the RTV 108 should come in "clear", black and white. Double check the specs but all three should have the same strengths Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dustin Pedretti Posted March 25, 2018 Author Share Posted March 25, 2018 It has a layer of some kind of plastic covering the bottom. I think I will take it all apart just for good measure. I was wondering if adding some kind of color dye to the clear would be possible.Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Dogfish Posted March 25, 2018 Share Posted March 25, 2018 Silicone halloween props are dyed with Silc-Pig Non Toxic claim. Hair dye has been used also, but i'm not sure about the toxicity Info and SDS www.reynoldsam.com/product/silc-pig/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted March 25, 2018 Share Posted March 25, 2018 1 hour ago, Dogfish said: Silicone halloween props are dyed with Silc-Pig Non Toxic claim. Hair dye has been used also, but i'm not sure about the toxicity Info and SDS www.reynoldsam.com/product/silc-pig/ Learn something new every day! It's says it's used with 2 part silicones, does it mix well with single part moisture cure types? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Dogfish Posted March 25, 2018 Share Posted March 25, 2018 1 hour ago, Timfish said: Learn something new every day! It's says it's used with 2 part silicones, does it mix well with single part moisture cure types? I do not know that answer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted March 28, 2018 Share Posted March 28, 2018 Another experiement! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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