Help With Beat Up Tank....

[Earlsfat]

Hi. I'm Jim. I did a big dumb thing and lent out a 75 (not sure of exact dimensions but it’s about 4’ wide 2’ deep and 2’ tall - and probably about 30 years old, lol) gallon fish tank to my brother in law, who just about trashed it. (Yes I never learn from my mistakes.)

Seriously though... Before I go and dump a huge amount of money into a new tank, if this will work I'm gonna try that first... being that I already have the tank.

My kids want some fish... so I got my tank back (took a look at it and swore a whole bunch) and decided I'd be better off taking it apart to see if it's worth fixing (I've been trolling quite a few sites for building my own tank for years and am pretty confident I can fix it). The plastic around the top and bottom were cracked and broken to the point of falling off, there must have been leaks since someone put HUGE swaths of caulk around the seams inside and out... The glass (all 1/2”) has a lot of scratches, but none are very deep, and there are a few chips on the corners nothing more than about ¼” in diameter and no deeper than about 1/8” - if need be I think I can have them be at the top of the tank where no water will be.

I figure I can use a solvent to get rid of the remaining caulk to get clean edges and use 100% silicone caulk to put it back together, wash it out with dish soap first time then rinse the heck out of it several times, yadda, yadda, yadda…

My questions are - Do I need to have the bottom and top black plastic things that the tank rests on, and that the lid rests on (I think they also help the structure of the tank too). Can I make these out of wood??? Does anyone sell them or does anyone know how to make them??? The old ones are made of some sort of composite / faux wood glued at the corners.



I have a ton of other questions (the last time this tank had fish in it I was 7, and all the little tank's I've had over the last few years never did well), but they concern setting it up: filters, pumps up, cycling it, etc and I guess those oughtta go in another forum…



Thanks (from me and my kids, lol.)

 

[Underwurlde]

plastic things are purely decorative.

Andy

 

[Earlsfat]

plastic things are purely decorative.

Andy

Really??? That would explain the poor quality, etc.

New question.... I need to have something that supports the outter edges of the tank so that the bottom panel isn't in contact witth the stand, correct? What does everyone do for that? Make a wood frame that supports the outter 1/2" or so of the bottom - or - can I just glue / silicone 1/2" x 1/2" strips to the bottom? ................................ Or should I make that part of the stand???

 

[saltynay]

Use a strip of polystyrene or a thickly padded towel. Its to stop the tank from bowing and putting pressure on individual sectors by a small amount of padding you stop this from happening and prevent microfractures which can later lead to cracks and eventually a very wet floor and very dead fish. It doesn't have to be too thick with a 30 gallon say a couple of cm of polystyrene is good. Hope you have the proper stand as it will weigh 140 kilos + when filled

 

[Underwurlde]

Erm, I think I get you.

You need to support the entire base. Plywood is good for this. To get an even pressure across the base of the glass tank, it is HIGHLY recommended that a thin piece of foam is sandwiched between bottom of tank and flat surface of whatever it is resting on.

Foam is commonly available at your LFS.

Plywood would need to be quite thick & is inherently strong anyway, but you want it FLAT and STRONG. The wood frame should then be meaty enough to ensure the support & rigidity of the flat plywood surface.

If your tank was 4ft x 2ft x 2ft, thats about 450 litres of water, almost half a metric tonnes worth.... so quite heavy then!

75 Gallons (UK) is 340 Litres
75 Gallons (US) is 280 Litres.

(Note - avoid stating UK gallons, stick to Litres if possible or US Gallons)

Andy

 

[saltynay]

Whoops thought he said 30 gallons my bad yeah your dealing with alot of weight but inturn can keep a really well stocked tank with lots of variety if you wish.

 

[R0ADK1ll88]

Sorry to jump into your post but I have a 55G on an aquarium cabinet, should I have the foam underneath? This thread is the first I heard about it.

 

[saltynay]

Yes every tank should have padding even little plastic ones its not much effort to do and a good precaution to take.

 

[jschlosser]

plastic things are purely decorative.

Andy

Really??? That would explain the poor quality, etc.

New question.... I need to have something that supports the outter edges of the tank so that the bottom panel isn't in contact witth the stand, correct? What does everyone do for that? Make a wood frame that supports the outter 1/2" or so of the bottom - or - can I just glue / silicone 1/2" x 1/2" strips to the bottom? ................................ Or should I make that part of the stand???

You will need to be extremely careful to get it all square when you assemble it so that the water's weight is distributed as evenly as possible. It may be worth your while to go ahead and have a professional reassemble it for you. Otherwise, I suppose you can come up with some sort of jig to square up the corners and hold all in place as the silicone set. For final cleaning before joining the pieces, you will want to wipe it down with rubbing alcohol.

If you don't already have a stand or aren't buying one, I built a really sturdy and useful one by attaching 2-drawer filing cabinets to each other with a 2x4 between them front and back, put that whole structure on a 2x4 base and topped it with a 2x2 frame with 2x2 crossmembers just a bit higher than the tops of the cabinets, then topped all of that with a nice thick FLAT piece of chipboard. Covered up the 2x4's with some nice moulding and put a foam rubber mat on top of the stand. Very useful for storing fish stuff and paperwork and looks nice anywhere. I think we have the same size tanks - my setup used 4 cheap filecabinets and cost me about $125 to build. It is a bit wider than the tank, so my cat has a nice place to sit and drool.

 

[Craster]

Yes every tank should have padding even little plastic ones its not much effort to do and a good precaution to take.

A lot of prebuilt tanks & stands have a floating base, meaning that the glass isn't actually in contact with the stand. In these cases you don't need to pad between them.

 

[rabbut]

^^ Indeed, if it is floating based, you don't need foam e.t.c underneath. In fact, in some cases, it is dangerouns not to place the tank's lower support frame onto the solid surface directly.

 

[R0ADK1ll88]

Thanks, I will be changing the substrate in the next couple of weeks to I will put a piece in then.