Acrylic Tank overflow leak

[FlyTekk]

Hey guys i have an acrylic tank which i just filled for the first time. I added rocks fish and corals from other tank. I didnt have the plumbing ready so i figured id fill tank up to the teeth of the overflow box till i get sump and plumbing situation.

Well to my surprise water proceeded to leak down on my floor and floor below!

As it turns out the overflow box is not sealed properly. So water from main tank could seap inside overflow box without having to flow abover the teeth.

Is there anyway to seal this off with out draining whole tank again. I dont have a place to put all the rocks corals water and fish.


I have weld on but think that is for dry application.

 

[nanoreefer22]

I think you're going to be stuck draining and sealing. I wouldn't trust anything else with a tank full of water.

 

[albano]

I would think that you must drain and dry the aquarium, before glue/welding

 

[FlyTekk]

Gosh!! I figured same thing.

Other question is how safe am i if i leave like that. Assuming i glue the return and drains on either side of bulk heads?

 

[noelskii]

If you have to think twice about it...it's not a good thing... Do it right the second time, if not the first time.

 

[marrone]

You're not gluing it but chemically bonding it with the Weldon. You need to bring the water down below the spot that is leaking, dry it really good, and then use the Weldon on it. It bond instantly but they usually tell you to wait 24 hours before filling it up again.

You best bet is to contact someone that work with acrylic, as they can tell you what you need to do, and maybe even come over and do it. If it's a seam it could let go, which wouldn't be a good thing to have happen and it's better to play it safe then to have the tank explode.

 

[edd]

if your over flow is plastic, i don't think you can use weldon as its made for acrylic.
i would seal it now. if you have a long power outage you could end up with a flood.

 

[Clown guru]

Listen to all advice presented here. Get a few storage container from Kmart and get that tank empty. Better safe than sorry.

 

[FlyTekk]

Okay i will drain and repair. So assuming the overflow box isnt acrylic what should i use?

 

[marrone]

Glass tanks use the plastic overflows, but all the acrylic tanks that I've ever seen have been made 100% of acrylic. So the overflow should be acrylic, which you can tell by looking at the teeth on top of the overflow box. So you should use Weldon to seal/bond it together.

 

[FlyTekk]

Excellent. Thank you!

 

[FlyTekk]

Hey guys so i used a small plastic block that comes with kessil goosenecks and coral glued it to the wetside of the leak. It stopped the leak immediately.

Im going to observe it for 48 hours. If things stay dry i will then weldon the dryside of the leak.

Fingers crossed.

In the pictures u can see the the ic gel was able to creep through the hole from wetside to dryside. I will have to cut this off with blade and sand down to get a piece of acrylic to weldon flush.

 

[FlyTekk]

Hey after over a week of testing if the ic gel (coral glue) would hold water tight, the ic gel past the test. Not a drop ever made it into the overflow box.

I cut off the small piece of ic gel the made it to the inside and sanded it down to make it flat with overflow walls.

Now i used weldon and welded a piece of acrylic on the inside of the overflow box. For a double seal on both sides.

Never had to drain tank.

I wedged a screw driver in there to hold the acrylic in place while it cures.