10 year old, never used tank

[mnccnm]

I have a question I would like to get some feedback on. Apologies in advance if I'm posting this in the wrong section. I recently purchased a 10 year old 90 gallon Lee Mar tank. The tank has never had water in it. The silicone looks perfect and shows no sign of drying or flaking, although the only paces there is a bead of silicone on the inside of the tank is the bottom and top. The only silicone on the side corners is what was used to glue the glass together.
I was planning on removing at least the bottom silicone and re-sealing the bottom and the corners with a bead inside the tank, just in case. Am I wasting my time?

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Will you please upload photos of the silicone sections in question?

 

[mnccnm]

Pics

 

[PheonixKingZ]

It does look kind of old... I would re-silicone it if you feel uncomfortable about it. Better safe than sorry!

 

[Colin_T]

Touch the silicon and see if it's firm but squishy. If it is, then it's good.

Look along the edge of the glass and see if there are any bubbles in the silicon. Bubbles or cream/ white silicon indicates the silicon is coming away from the glass.

I would take it outside and put it on a stand and fill it with water. As long as it doesn't drip or leak, then it's good to go and you don't need to touch the silicon.

 

[Dajuyu]

Pics

the best way is still put water in it and check for any leakage . As Colin_T said put is outdoor a lawn so that it wont create a mess if there are any real leakage detected.

And for this hobby there are no such thing as wasting time ... its satisfaction to see the fruits of your effort thats more important .

 

[mnccnm]

Sorry for the delay, been pretty busy at work.
A couple more questions:
Like I stated in the original post, the only silicone in the side corners is what is between the panes of glass gluing them together. While I realize there is probably minimal water pressure here, is this common? I'm used to seeing beads in the corners.
Also, I read mixed views on whether the tank should be disassembled to remove the silicone gluing the panes together, some stating you MUST do this and others saying to not do this.

All this being said, I resealed my 125 ten years ago, not putting this much research into it, scraped off the beads, acetone cleaned and resealed. This tank is still doing fine.

Am I overthinking this?

 

[Dajuyu]

Sorry for the delay, been pretty busy at work.
A couple more questions:
Like I stated in the original post, the only silicone in the side corners is what is between the panes of glass gluing them together. While I realize there is probably minimal water pressure here, is this common? I'm used to seeing beads in the corners.
Also, I read mixed views on whether the tank should be disassembled to remove the silicone gluing the panes together, some stating you MUST do this and others saying to not do this.

All this being said, I resealed my 125 ten years ago, not putting this much research into it, scraped off the beads, acetone cleaned and resealed. This tank is still doing fine.

Am I overthinking this?

Overthinking cant do any good.
take out the tank fill it with water and wait for half an hour ... see if there are leakage thats all.

 

[Utar]

Welcome to the forum. New, used, given to me, or found on the side of the road. I always test my tanks outside in a safe area for at least 24 hours before bringing it in the house and filling it with water.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Sorry for the delay, been pretty busy at work.
A couple more questions:
Like I stated in the original post, the only silicone in the side corners is what is between the panes of glass gluing them together. While I realize there is probably minimal water pressure here, is this common? I'm used to seeing beads in the corners.
Also, I read mixed views on whether the tank should be disassembled to remove the silicone gluing the panes together, some stating you MUST do this and others saying to not do this.

All this being said, I resealed my 125 ten years ago, not putting this much research into it, scraped off the beads, acetone cleaned and resealed. This tank is still doing fine.

Am I overthinking this?

Have you leak-tested it yet?

 

[mnccnm]

Yes, but only for about a half hour.

 

[mnccnm]

Still curious about what everyone thinks about the lack of corner silicone, and the contrasting views on whether the silicone gluing the corners together needs to be removed or not.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Still curious about what everyone thinks about the lack of corner silicone, and the contrasting views on whether the silicone gluing the corners together needs to be removed or not.

I would honestly just re-silicone the entire tank, just to be safe. If you just replace the areas that “need it”, then it will be a tank with old and new silicone. That could lead the issues down the road.

 

[mnccnm]

I guess I'm not being clear.

I have never seen a tank with no silicone on the inside of the side corners other than the silicone that is gluing the panes of glass together. Is/was this common and I just haven't noticed it before? Does anyone else have a tank like this? Any issues from this?

I have encountered tutorials stressing the importance, if you are resealing a tank, of disassembling the entire tank to remove the silicone that is gluing the panes of glass together. They stress this is a MUST or the tiny strip of old silicone gluing the pane together that makes contact with the new silicone, (applied on the inside of the tank) will be a problem and cause failure. This is contrary to what I have done in the past, and I assume contrary to what most people here have done. Has anyone else heard this?

I just filled the tank in the garage, will let it sit for a few days and decide what to do.

 

[mnccnm]

Nothing?