HELP! Acrylic Repair

[Cbechdel]

I have a ~200 gal acrylic glass cage (ahem) I bought from one of those .com places earlier this summer peninsula style (7' x 2' x 2') with overflow along the 2' end.

I keep freshwater Cichlids.

Been full of water since August, livestock since september.

I had a seam split on the outside corner, thankfully behind the overflow divider, so the DT is holding water fine just the overflow chamber is empty. I reworked plumbing to continue filtration etc. so all stable for now.

Contacted the supplier, and they overnighted me a kit to repair it myself.

They sent me 2 sticks of acrylic, 23" x 1/2" x 1" and a tube of weld-on 16 and told me to carefully clean the area dry it etc. then affix the strips to cover the corners.

Where the seam split, it split halfway between top and bottom of the tank. Looks like a perfectly clean like it as never glued (which clearly it had to have been) The front main acrylic panel bows out leaving about a 1/16" gap in the middle of the split, and the gap disappears as the seam gets to the top and bottom.

My questions:
1) Should I first fill in the gaping gap with the weld-on and clamp together to cure it
2) then affix the reinforcing strips
3) Any words of wisdom to guide me through this....my first time with acrylic repair and this time it's gonna count! fortunately the area I will fix wont be seen ever in the overflow area, so I don't have to be too terribly concerned about being messy...

I have been reading up elsewhere and here, so am really looking for first hand guidance.....will probably be making the repair this afternoon.

I heard the split while I was down in basement working on cleaning the sump filter media, had no idea what the noise as, then few minutes later notice my sump was emptying and no return water coming in...upstairs to the mess and the fish were spooked! I've never seen the tank look so empty, they hid in every last nook and cranny, even some that are normally aggressive to each other were hiding side-by side! Took them about an hour to come back out. they wouldn't even feed!

[mcgyvr]

yep..that's how I would attempt it.
Good luck..
Post some pics before and after just for anyone else coming along.

[uncleof6]

Definitely pm or wait for James (Acrylics) to give you some guidance before you attempt the repair.

[Acrylics]

actually, if you can post a pic or two first - might be helpful :)
I'm trying to envision how an outer seam could go and only the overflow is empty? I guess I'm missing something :)

Squeezing some 16 into a joint won't hold long term (generally) as the 16 is mostly solvent and it will simply evaporate out leaving a nasty little area that will likely leak really can't be fixed afterwards. I guess just spread some of the 16 on the strip and the area to be glued and wedge it in there. Horrid way of fixing things though, esp on a tank in operation.. but I guess we do what we gotta..

If you can toss up a coupla pics, perhaps we can come up with something better :)

James

[peppie]

Makes me wonder what condition, and how long will the rest of the seams will last???

[Acrylics]

Makes me wonder what condition, and how long will the rest of the seams will last???yup, and if the OP bought it new and the joints are failing within 2 months :(

[mickey204]

If you could provide pictures, we could give you more guidance.

Acrylic welding is not gluing, you have to plan what you're doing beforehand and have everything ready as once the weldon goes on and into place, you're committed. It chemically fuses (welds) the 2 pieces of acrylic together, meaning after its done it is one piece of acrylic. There is no taking apart or reusing.

If I were to do this repair, this is how I would do it.

I would first make sure the split seam can be put together flush. Meaning if your tank is full, it obviously had enough flex to break the seam.

(realistically this was more then likely a dry weld, meaning they didn't weld it properly or applied to much force during the weld which would have driven the weldon out of the seam or they simply missed that area to weld)

You want a repair that lasts, so if the seam cannot be pushed together to where it is "supposed to be" with little force then you would have to remove enough water from the tank to remove the flex in the acrylic so when you do your "patch" it has a flush strong weld to the corner.

I would make sure one strip has a routed edge, or an edge which is shaven down so it is extremely smooth. This edge will be welding to the other strip.

Technically you will be making the corner by itself out of the 2 strips, (a corner brace) you would then decide if you want the weld on the inside or outside. If you do the weld on the outside of the corner, the strip will have 2 smooth sides and you can apply the weld on 16 down the corner of the strip, and clamp it down VERY GENTLY!!!!!

The only issue is the patch is on the outside and will be ugly if in view. Granted it is on the back of the tank. I would mount it on the outside as this will make the welding much easier.

If you decide to run the newly made corner brace on the inside of the tank, I would make sure the edge which is going to be touching the tank to be smoothed down as well, as this edge with the 2 faces of the strips will be the parts in direct contact with the tank and being welded to the tank.

http://i1292.photobucket.com/albums/b567/mickey2041/cornerweld.jpg


If you do it this way, the corner brace is already a solid piece which will weld as one piece into the corner. If you choose to do it as 2 different strips it may work, but I wouldn't do it. But that's just me.

I would also strongly suggest to do the brace weld on the outside as you can gently clamp it to the tank and the weld will be getting sealed from the outside in, pushing into the tank to weld. If you do it on the inside you will have to push outwards which will open that seam up while attempting to weld it, unless you clamp the corner into place. For the 7' portion you can daisy chain 2 clamps together.

You can also run a bead of weldon into the inside of the corner after the brace is on to create a weld down the corner just to be double safe.

If you weld the seam together first, it will make the weldon squeeze through the 2 pieces which means you have to make sure you wipe any excess weldon away otherwise it will prevent the strips from making a flush contact. to the other acrylic....

Like I said, this is how I would do it. I'm not saying other methods wont work but Id prefer to have something that wont leak again especially if livestock is already in the tank.

No matter what you do after you seal this corner deal with the company that made it and make sure you immediately talk to the higher up's and explain the issue, and how you expect them to get you a new tank asap as you cannot trust the other welds now.

Hope this explanation and diagram helps!!!!

Then again maybe your problem is totally different then what I thought! haha

[Cbechdel]

Thanks everyone for the guidance, it was quite helpful and helped remove the terror in my mind about losing the whole thing.

Made the repair over weekend, friday night me and a carpenter friend spent about 4 hours just building and setting up clamps, braces and shims to hold everything in place, including 2x4's wedged between tank and house walls just to make sure all seams were flush and would hold steady during the repair and gluing.

Left it sit a day and a half, and last night put water back in, and am happy to say its all holding well!

Thankfully the repair will be hidden behind the overflow wall, it ain't pretty but it's working. It really sucked that my first foray into acrylic work would be to repair my $$$$$$ display tank. oh well...

I've ordered a supply of necessities from eplastics.com so I have repair parts, glues, and parts available as needed for ongoing repairs and projects.

This is also prompting me to redo some of my plumbing so I can use valves to bypass my overflow filtration and link into my secondary stand-alone canister filtration (heat etc., is plumbed in line with the sump, so I lost those accessories during this period...). So if I have another overflow mishap, I can easily get the tank back to running then focus on the repairs.


Man, was I glad I set up redundant filtration when I set this tank up, having the 2nd canister filter saved my fish for these few days!