500G barn find.... Here goes!

[Monad]

Really excited to watch this.

I love watching refurbished tanks. My tank is a "garage find" 90 gallon display, stand, and sump.

Looking forward to seeing your progress on this monster.

 

[Coral Memere]

Once we figured out where the tank- and all it's weight- would be, it was time to head to the basement and reinforce the floor.

We had bought 3" x 6" pt wood when we originally thought to brace for the 220. (We didn't because we placed it against the wall and over the foundation wall) In the meanwhile, Hubby found told creosote- treated telephone poles that he picked up for $60, delivered. We used the pt wood for the cross beams and the telephone poles for the upright braces. (I did my homework- creosote-treated are not toxic and age old- still used for gardens. The PT wood has more chemicals in it (arsenic) like the more modern telephone poles)

Taped out where the tank would be, up above.

Used cinder blocks and bottle jacks to put the cross beams into place.

H got VERY good with his chain saw and cutting straight rounds.

A level, t square, ladder and a sledge hammer let us brace them into place, letting the weight settle into them when the bottle jacks released.


7 hours later and despite the "help" of the 6-year old future carpenter, we got the 10' area braced every 30". (Leaving one spaced the width of the bulkhead opening in case anything needed to go in or out that way in the future)

 

[Coral Memere]

At the same time, and given our history of house flooding, we decided to test the tightness of the tank, while still outside.

FAIL!
At some point in history, a chip had formed at the juncture of the black casing (on the right in the picture) and the tank acrylic. While the one on the left was perfectly sealed with caulking, someone had the bright idea to apply plumbers putty to seal the leak on the right. No no no no.

Water seeped immediately from the base and probably 50 gallons were lost, overnight. Now, it's fully caulked with aquarium/marine grade caulking and water tight. It's been outside off-gassing for the last week. (Lesson learned from a different long story involving a different yard sale find of a leaky 120g tank and the death of 30+ freshwater fish)

It was in the 30s overnight, last night, so I'm hoping to convince the boys to get the tank in the house this weekend.


Time to start stocking up on salt, getting it filled, working on a sump/filter plan and getting it cycling. I got a TON of equipment with the other systems we purchased to go into this, among which is a Fluval FX6 canister filter and a couple huge skimmers. I'm thinking the skimmers in sumps to correspond with the black plumbing second on each side and the canister filter in the middle. The filter is rated for 400g tank. I don't have good luck with sumps, so I'm not putting all my money into them doing most of the work. However, I just stumbled onto the Triton sump setup and realized I may have been doing it wrong, all this time. I welcome advice and suggestions. (Treat me like a newbie and assume I don't know what language you're speaking when you talk of stuff and acronyms, please)

I also need to work on a hardscape plan. I bought a large meter (affordable, not crazy) when I realized that my hodgepodge of inherited lighting probably wouldn't reach to the bottom of the 30" deep tank. The good news is, I'll never keep sps coral, so low lighting (<150 par) is ok. I got thinking about maybe making arches down deep (the first 6-8 inches) for the fish to play in and then my coral from 24", up. I want to make islands or peninsulas for each type- zoas, Gonis, Favia, acans, blastos, Bowers, yadda yadda. Suggestions? Advice? Design drawings?!?!?!? Lol

 

[zheka757]

May i recommend filling tank and holding it filled longer? It's a lot of water and a big tank, neighbor had 400g acrylic that was slowly developing seam crack, he tried to glue it several times with out any success. How tick is the panels on this tank?

 

[Mhamilton0911]

I have no experience with acrylic repair but I'm thinking Weldon 16 or something similar would be better long term than silicone.

It's thick like honey and melts/welds acrylic together permanently. There are other acrylic glues (Weldon 4) that are thin and will wick into seams when building tanks new.

I have assembled acrylic pieces with the above glues but it was not structural on the main tank, it was for an all in one insert.

I would definitely lookup those glues to see if those would better suit the repair. It'll be a lot harder to repair again if it fails in the future....

 

[fishguy242]

Agree ,sorry to say silicone will NOT hold forever on acrylic ,destin to fail .
need to strip out silicone, clean residue and reweld with a weld-on ,would not hurt to weld in seam braces
"acrylic cut at 45% strips " after 1st weld is complete,sorry ,great work so far... :)
going to call in the acrylic guru's for you.
@Joe Glass Cages @Lowell Lemon @Troylee ??

 

[Chrisv.]

Yes this method of repair is a very bad idea. Acrylic seams are welds like steel, not glued like glass. Acrylic cement is a solvent that fuses the acrylic at the seam.

 

[Troylee]

You need to strip any and all putty and or silicone from the tank it will fail sooner than later.. without seeing the damage in question I’d cast all the seams with Weldon 40 or 42 if you wanna have any chance of saving that tank.

 

[fishguy242]

You need to strip any and all putty and or silicone from the tank it will fail sooner than later.. without seeing the damage in question I’d cast all the seams with Weldon 40 or 42 if you wanna have any chance of saving that tank.

What is best to use to make sure all silicone residue is clean before re weld ?

 

[Troylee]

What is best to use to make sure all silicone residue is clean before re weld ?

I use denatured alcohol on new acrylic.. being this tank is older there’s a chance of crazing so scraping and sanding might be the best choice.. I’d try the denatured in an area that’s not so visible to check for crazing aka micro cracks first.

 

[Coral Memere]

May i recommend filling tank and holding it filled longer? It's a lot of water and a big tank, neighbor had 400g acrylic that was slowly developing seam crack, he tried to glue it several times with out any success. How tick is the panels on this tank?

They're 3/4" panels.

Our family has an ugly history with flooding... Tank leaks, washing machines, windows left open- it's downright biblical- yet we still choose a water hobby! When we decided that we were going to do this, we vowed we would do it right, safely, hopefully avoiding leaks and floods. I PROMISE you we are filling some... And watching... A little more.... And watching. Remembering to put the kids back on because the evaporation is epic!

I'm pretty sure we'd have a hard time finding a homeowners policy that will take us on if we flood again!

 

[Coral Memere]

I have no experience with acrylic repair but I'm thinking Weldon 16 or something similar would be better long term than silicone.

It's thick like honey and melts/welds acrylic together permanently. There are other acrylic glues (Weldon 4) that are thin and will wick into seams when building tanks new.

I have assembled acrylic pieces with the above glues but it was not structural on the main tank, it was for an all in one insert.

I would definitely lookup those glues to see if those would better suit the repair. It'll be a lot harder to repair again if it fails in the future....

Agree ,sorry to say silicone will NOT hold forever on acrylic ,destin to fail .
need to strip out silicone, clean residue and reweld with a weld-on ,would not hurt to weld in seam braces
"acrylic cut at 45% strips " after 1st weld is complete,sorry ,great work so far... :)
going to call in the acrylic guru's for you.
@Joe Glass Cages @Lowell Lemon @Troylee ??

Yes this method of repair is a very bad idea. Acrylic seams are welds like steel, not glued like glass. Acrylic cement is a solvent that fuses the acrylic at the seam.

You need to strip any and all putty and or silicone from the tank it will fail sooner than later.. without seeing the damage in question I’d cast all the seams with Weldon 40 or 42 if you wanna have any chance of saving that tank.

I'm am so sorry, folks! My mistake in storytelling!!! I'm sorry to get y'all worked up.

I DID NOT try to repair acrylic seams with caulking!!!!

Have no fear! I did my homework (even got YouTube certified) on acrylic tanks before taking this on. I have weldon already waiting should anything develop in the actual seams of the acrylic.

What I caulked was where the black plastic cutout for the drain/sump plumbing meets its seat in the base of the tank! It probably doesn't even need to be watertight when it's up and running, but I had to seal it to test for water loss elsewhere.

 

[backbayreef]

Following along - very cool rescue / barn find! Love all the DIY stuff to make this brand new again -- can't wait to see you start plumbing this bad boy up! I've done that 2 months ago and it was a lot of [fun] work! :)

 

[Coral Memere]

Update:
Last Sunday, while I was at work, Hubby, the kids and a grandkids or 2 decided to surprise me and moved the tank inside and set it up onto the base!

Without even nudging the chandelier!

I've been promising him that he could be my first "fish" in the tank. They got him to hold his nose, but he didn't want to get dirty, so he would t pretend to be swimming...

The next day, I got in the tank myself and started cleaning out the barn grime.

(The front corner of that black plastic is what I caulked)
Being inside the tank revealed a couple things.
1. It's in REALLY good shape. And
2. There's a LOT MORE real estate that I could have ever wrapped my head around. I believe we have plenty of substrate, but I'm going to need much more rock... And a whole lot more coral.

YAY!!!! MORE! CORAL!!!

I bleached the inside, wiped it down with the denatured alcohol and let it air. While I was double checking things, I figured I'd better make sure we hadn't messed up the flooring below:

Nothing left to do but try it out!!! So bring on the water!!!!!

It's been 2 days and the first 3 inches are holding tight. I have to figure out a plug for the random hole in the back and then I can keep adding.

 

[backbayreef]

Hard to see from this angle but how much clearance do you have between the tank & wall/window? Given the tank this size, it will be very challenging to get to the back to do any maintenance/adjustments. I left 12" of space but with all the plumbing, it's extremely tight to get in the back! I should have gone with 18" instead - oh well.

 

[Troylee]

Update:
Last Sunday, while I was at work, Hubby, the kids and a grandkids or 2 decided to surprise me and moved the tank inside and set it up onto the base!

Without even nudging the chandelier!

I've been promising him that he could be my first "fish" in the tank. They got him to hold his nose, but he didn't want to get dirty, so he would t pretend to be swimming...

The next day, I got in the tank myself and started cleaning out the barn grime.

(The front corner of that black plastic is what I caulked)
Being inside the tank revealed a couple things.
1. It's in REALLY good shape. And
2. There's a LOT MORE real estate that I could have ever wrapped my head around. I believe we have plenty of substrate, but I'm going to need much more rock... And a whole lot more coral.

YAY!!!! MORE! CORAL!!!

I bleached the inside, wiped it down with the denatured alcohol and let it air. While I was double checking things, I figured I'd better make sure we hadn't messed up the flooring below:

Nothing left to do but try it out!!! So bring on the water!!!!!

It's been 2 days and the first 3 inches are holding tight. I have to figure out a plug for the random hole in the back and then I can keep adding.

Picture of said random hole? An acrylic patch with Weldon 16 or 40 should be fine on the inside.

 

[rhitee93]

Following along :)

 

[Chrisv.]

I'm am so sorry, folks! My mistake in storytelling!!! I'm sorry to get y'all worked up.

I DID NOT try to repair acrylic seams with caulking!!!!

Have no fear! I did my homework (even got YouTube certified) on acrylic tanks before taking this on. I have weldon already waiting should anything develop in the actual seams of the acrylic.

What I caulked was where the black plastic cutout for the drain/sump plumbing meets its seat in the base of the tank! It probably doesn't even need to be watertight when it's up and running, but I had to seal it to test for water loss elsewhere.

I don't think anyone was worked up. You came asking for advice and we gave it. Good luck with your tank!

 

[Coral Memere]

Hard to see from this angle but how much clearance do you have between the tank & wall/window? Given the tank this size, it will be very challenging to get to the back to do any maintenance/adjustments. I left 12" of space but with all the plumbing, it's extremely tight to get in the back! I should have gone with 18" instead - oh well.

It's 20" all around. Enough to get the small ladder in there. We measured twice... Placed once.

 

[Coral Memere]

I don't think anyone was worked up. You came asking for advice and we gave it. Good luck with your tank!

Than you for sharing what you know and your experience with acrylic.

It's the plumbing set up I need help with.