Re-sealing A Hexagon Tank Looking For Some Help

VID

I HATE WC"S
May 6, 2005
29
0
0
44
KEIZER OREGON
I got a hexagon tank from a buddy of mine that was sittin in his garage and wanted to know about re-sealing it. I scraped out all the silicone on the inside vertical and started on the bottom. The only problem is two corners of the tank have split wich ive heard that you should re-do the outside silicone. What im tryin is using clamps to hold the peices of glass together and just putting in new silicone. Wanted to get any help i can and if you think this is a good idea .


siz of tank is 13'' high , 21'' wide 25"long roughly, also any idea about how many gallons it is , thanks
 
I really hope that someone gives you some advice as im hoping to reseal my hex aquarium and i was going to ask the same question. I'll tell you i've had a hard time trying to figure out how many gallons my tank is. I just guess its around 20-30 gallons although mine is taller than yours :huh:.. When i took out all the gravel i saw a label that said it was an all-glass aquarium so i can sort of get an idea of the size by seeing what kind of hexagon aquariums that all-glass makes. Does your have any kind of label on the underside?
 
This is what I would do, whether it is the correct way or not I dont know, the reason being is that most of us do not have glass clamps to use especialy for a hex tank.
Get all of the silicon off the sides of the glass where it has split, from the the bottom to the top, use a cutter or razor blade. Once there is no silicon on the glass and it is all cleaned you are ready to go. First of all get some tape that wont stretch when pulled. Sit the tank on a level surface, then what you have to do is use the tape instead of the glass clamps to hold the glass together. When aplying the tape make sure you line up the two pieces of glass properly, also aplying the tape should be done horizontaly to the seem as to give the tape more holding grip, make sure you use a few pieces to be sure the galss wont move.
Now run some tape adjacent to the seem on the inside leaving a gap from the seem of about 10mm, this will ensure that the silicon will not get messy and spread further then where you want it, also when you take the tape off it will leave a nice straight edge of silicon. Now you can silicon the inside, use a silicon gun, also after you aply a thick bead of silicon to the tank use a piece of plastic to even out the silicon by running it from bottom to top, once that is done and there are no air bubbles inside seem leave it to dry, 2 days just to be sure. Now you can do the outside of the tank, be very carefull when taking the tape off b/c you dont want to move the glass too much, if the silicon breaks inside you will have to do it all over again. Once the tape is off the silicon inside the tank should be doing its job and holding the glass in place, now you can do the same as the inside when doing the outside , run tape adjacent to the seem, run a nice thick bead of silicon from top to bottom and leave to dry, again about 2 days should be good.
Always test fill your tank after doing this, and if done proporly you should be fine. If you feel that you wont do a good job take it to a professional.
Goodluck. :clap:
 
So what I did was I sealed the outside first two corners that split first but one of them the glass is touching and on all the other corners the glass isn't touching they are seperated by a thin layer of silicone, u think I should do that corner over again or u think its fine
 
Sorry im really not sure, my best bet would say it would probally be stronger if the glass was touching and the silicone was just sealing them together versus being in between them. I guess the only true test is will it hold water
 
VID said:
So what I did was I sealed the outside first two corners that split first but one of them the glass is touching and on all the other corners the glass isn't touching they are seperated by a thin layer of silicone, u think I should do that corner over again or u think its fine

That should work fine. If the gap in between the glass is quite significant I would think about doing it again, but it sounds ok. As for the corner touching I would think think it would be ok, it depends on how much silicon is used on the seem, if it is quite a lot I would tend to think it would be ok, but without looking at it I can not say for sure. If you tried to wiggle the glass dose it move at all? I strongly recomend you filling it to the brim and leaving it for a week to see if any leaks appear. This has just got me thinking how old is the tank?
 
The tank looks older I like it cause its a short perfect octagon tank and would be cool to use for a dwarf puufer/panda cory tank with sand substrate, and yea if I wiggle it it will move a bit all the corners do but the one with the glass touching it rubs and makes scratching sounds
 
Dose it wiggle more than the other corners? If if doesn't I would think that it would be fine, but if you were concerned then maybe you should re-do it just for piece of mind. :)
 
it wiggles less than the other corners. I think it will be fine, just looking to see if someone else may have done same or new more about it than me. I will definately fill it and leave it filled for atleast a weak when im done. thanks for all the help your input was usefull everyone.
 
I resealed one almost exactly like that.. it was a 48 gallon perfect octagon. I just cut the old silicone out and put new in.. It worked great! and yes it was very old.. im guessing early 70's..
 
AquariaCentral.com