I thought I would share my horrible experience with a diy project to hopefully save other people's animals.
So, I have a little 6g tank that has a hob filter only. I wanted to add a little skimmer box so the surface would get cleaned ( the tank is a Fluval Edge, so helps keep algae issues away from top glass). Anyway. I did not want to pay the $43 for the only one I could find, so I made one.
I took some plexiglass I have used on projects before and bought some silicon 100% and was set. I added teeth to the plexiglass, made in a tiny rectangle that fit perfect. Waited over 3 days for it to completely set.
Woohoo, just got some baby clowns for this kids tank (it is one of our traveling systems) and all was going good.
I put the skimmer box in and went on with my day. About 24 hours later, I went down to feed and top off (was gone all day) and clowns dead, urchin dead, shrimp dead, corals bleached, everything horrible. What happened???
I pulled everything still alive out of the tank, and put in an emergency tank with new water and none of the rock or sand from the tank. This was Saturday night.
Today Monday, another fish dead (my Tangori goby). Corals not doing well at all. I moved what I could to my 40g to heal if they will.
So, what went wrong? After a bit of research, I discovered I used Silicon II not I. That is the only thing I did to this tank that was stable for 2.5 years.
Do NOT make this mistake anyone. Get the correct silicon as even if 100% it is very different!!!
Hope this helps someone in future.
So, I have a little 6g tank that has a hob filter only. I wanted to add a little skimmer box so the surface would get cleaned ( the tank is a Fluval Edge, so helps keep algae issues away from top glass). Anyway. I did not want to pay the $43 for the only one I could find, so I made one.
I took some plexiglass I have used on projects before and bought some silicon 100% and was set. I added teeth to the plexiglass, made in a tiny rectangle that fit perfect. Waited over 3 days for it to completely set.
Woohoo, just got some baby clowns for this kids tank (it is one of our traveling systems) and all was going good.
I put the skimmer box in and went on with my day. About 24 hours later, I went down to feed and top off (was gone all day) and clowns dead, urchin dead, shrimp dead, corals bleached, everything horrible. What happened???
I pulled everything still alive out of the tank, and put in an emergency tank with new water and none of the rock or sand from the tank. This was Saturday night.
Today Monday, another fish dead (my Tangori goby). Corals not doing well at all. I moved what I could to my 40g to heal if they will.
So, what went wrong? After a bit of research, I discovered I used Silicon II not I. That is the only thing I did to this tank that was stable for 2.5 years.
Do NOT make this mistake anyone. Get the correct silicon as even if 100% it is very different!!!
Hope this helps someone in future.