resealed tank now have odd silicone issue

[sagecx]

Ok so im trying to reseal a large tank, its a 125g hex. After it was resealed the tank held cold water with no problem for a week. Then when i drained it and moved it inside and added a water heater the problem started. Once the water temp rose to safe fish levels the tank started to leak out of the repaired seam. I cut the seam again and resealed it. But it had the same problem hold cold water leaks when the water warms. Does anyone have any ideas what im doing wrong. Im using GE silicone 1 is this the wrong type or is there a better one? Thanks for any help im pretty confused with the whole thing right now.

 

[kgross]

How are you cleaning it up to reseal? It could be that the silicone is not sticking well enough, and the warm water has an easier time making between the glass and silicone.

There are better silicones, but they are harder to get, but your GE 1 should work fine.

Kim

 

[Saltyfish]

scrape it and then Acetone to make sure you remove all the old and dirt.

Seal and let sit for 1 week. Also you might have a bad tube of silicone so you might want to look at the date, if any.

If you use the same tube of silicone and it happens again then repeat with a new tube of silicone

 

[sagecx]

i think the problem may be in the clean up like mentioned above. I just assumed that the silicone would seal over any small pieces of left over silicone. Going to try again this week and get some Acetone or rubbing alcohol. Will there be a problem where the silicone meets the old silicone at the joint? Should I do a thick overlap at the joint? Thanks again for the help.

 

[Saltyfish]

if you are not going to clean out the old you have to do a thick overlap so it goes from glass to glass. Since the old is hard it will not mix and may not seal.

 

[Bosco83]

Same thing happened to my sump baffles and it was because I didn't clean the glass good enough first. It held cold water just fine but as soon as I set it all up under my tank after about an hour of after turning the heater on the baffle fell over. So I had to tear it all apart take the center brace back off my stand and do it over again. I just cleaned the glass really good with rubbing alcohol and haven't had any problems since.

Brian

 

[roscoe]

Yes the key is to clean the surface of the glass where they will be contacting good. No nothing what soever. I firsts used silicone sand paper to sand down the fine silicone film and then used acetone to do the final clean up. I used All Glass Aquarium Silicone that I ordered online from pet smart. I think I payed 28 bucks shipped for 2 10oz tubes.

 

[sagecx]

Yeah I finally just took the time and really carefully cleaned the area. Also when i filled the seam i did it in one complete pass. Since then its held water perfectly. Thanks for all the help everyone.