3" chip on sump corner, how to fix

pledosophy

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I have a 3" chip on the corner of my sump. The break does not go through and the area holds water.

I am wondering if I should silicone over where the chip is, or maybe even fill in that area of the sump with silicone to the level of the chip for extra safety.

The area in question is where the drain goes into the sump. It is braced from two other sides and wouldn't take that much silicone to just fill over the chip if doing so would not cause other issues.

What would you do?

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Soren

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I have a 3" chip on the corner of my sump. The break does not go through and the area holds water.

I am wondering if I should silicone over where the chip is, or maybe even fill in that area of the sump with silicone to the level of the chip for extra safety.

The area in question is where the drain goes into the sump. It is braced from two other sides and wouldn't take that much silicone to just fill over the chip if doing so would not cause other issues.

What would you do?

IMG_3887.jpg
IMG_3885.jpg
That looks pretty bad. What overall size is the sump?
Clamshell chips (not what you have) are unlikely to cause tank failure, but a chip like yours has a good chance at some point of reaching into the silicone and causing a leak. At least, with a sump it may not be filled to the top so would not be under as much pressure.

If it were me, I'd probably just replace the sump tank for the peace of mind by reducing the risk of failure.

It is not certain that your tank will fail due to the chipping, but this looks worse than what I would personally take a risk on, IMO.
 
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pledosophy

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What overall size is the sump?
The sump holds 37g total.

Do you think there is any problem if I drain 2 tubes of silicone and the silicone in that area goes over where the chip is.

So basically that little bottom section there would have 3" of silicone on it, then the drain would flow on top of that. It would not affect the performance of the sump at all.
 

Soren

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The sump holds 37g total.

Do you think there is any problem if I drain 2 tubes of silicone and the silicone in that area goes over where the chip is.

So basically that little bottom section there would have 3" of silicone on it, then the drain would flow on top of that. It would not affect the performance of the sump at all.
I see where your idea is going. It would probably work for extra security as long as the pressure does not still cause a failure at the seam between glass panels. More silicone inside will not actually do much to prevent the seam from splitting if cracks from the chip get into the seam and cause the silicone to separate from the glass.

Though you would have to rebuild the sump (and I am very much a DIYer myself, hence my thought pattern), I would recommend replacing the tank and building the sump over. Some of the standard Aqueon/TopFin/Marineland tanks are similar in size and could be relatively cheap. It all depends on how much risk you are willing to take on a failed sump.

What is your display tank size? Consider how much all of your livestock could be worth and compare against the cost of replacing the sump to assess the risk of total loss if the sump does fail.

All of that being said, I have definitely had aquariums with chips that were still used (since I did not fully understand the risk) and have never had a failure personally, so I don't know how likely a failure is in your case.

I also just realized that hopefully a sump failure would not risk total loss on your system since the overflow should limit the water draining before the display empties completely or even very much.
 

BZOFIQ

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If you're desperate, get a strip of glass, say 2 x 10 or longer and silicone it in the corner...otherwise dump it.

When we were kids and couldn't afford jack we fixed plenty of small tanks gluing strips or "patches" over cracked glass - never had a failure in the years we did this.
 

SteveMM62Reef

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I warmed my Clam Shell Chip up with a Heating Pad set on High to open it up and used LiquId Super Glue to stabilize it.
 

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