Gap/bubble in silicone seam, should I be worried?

[jrmailo]

Hi,

I have a eurobraced 150 gallons (5’x2’x2’) and on the bottom right side of my tank there’s a bubble/gap in the middle of the silicone seam. As far as I can tell, no water has leaked into it yet. But how concerned should I be about the possible leakage?

 

[blaxsun]

What kind of tank is it? (I assume this is at a business)

 

[Jeffcb]

Hard to tell from the pic. Keep an eye on it for sure.

 

[ColoredRock]

So from what I have read ... the bead around the inside of the tank is more decorative.. what the concern is .. if its start to creep into the glass on glass seal. That is what happened to mine..Millage may very. hopefully others chime in.

 

[jrmailo]

What kind of tank is it? (I assume this is at a business)

It is a 12mm glass aquarium from SCA. And yes this is at a business!

 

[jrmailo]

So from what I have read ... the bead around the inside of the tank is more decorative.. what the concern is .. if its start to creep into the glass on glass seal. That is what happened to mine..Millage may very. hopefully others chime in.

Yes that is what I have read too. I’m not too worried about the outer seam. But the middle of the silicone has a weird cut-like injury with air traped on the inside

 

[blaxsun]

It is a 12mm glass aquarium from SCA. And yes this is at a business!

You can find reasonably cheap water detection sensors on Amazon. It might be worth spending a few dollars on one to give you advance warning if anything starts happening (in theory you'd get a leak as opposed to the entire tank going), and as it's in a business you probably wouldn't want to walk into 150 gallons of water first thing in the morning...

 

[jrmailo]

Also does the tank being eurobraced help alleviate the chance of leakage ?

 

[ColoredRock]

Yes that is what I have read too. I’m not too worried about the outer seam. But the middle of the silicone has a weird cut-like injury with air traped on the inside

Ya hard to tell from the pic... visually with mine I could see tiny copepods in between things they should not have been in between :/

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[jrmailo]

You can find reasonably cheap water detection sensors on Amazon. It might be worth spending a few dollars on one to give you advance warning if anything starts happening (in theory you'd get a leak as opposed to the entire tank going), and as it's in a business you probably wouldn't want to walk into 150 gallons of water first thing in the morning...

That would be very bad but indeed… thank you for your recommendation

 

[jrmailo]

Ya hard to tell from the pic... visually with mine I could see tiny copepods in between things they should not have been in between :/

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I had seen copepods get stuck in between my overflow silicone seams. While the over all construction of the tank is well done, they did do a poor job on the overflow silicone and that one particular spot that I had post on about.

 

[ColoredRock]

I had seen copepods get stuck in between my overflow silicone seams. While the over all construction of the tank is well done, they did do a poor job on the overflow silicone and that one particular spot that I had post on about.

For my reference.. they were in the Glass to Glass seam.. that, for me was enough to switch tanks.

 

[fishguy242]

hi,bummer to see, use a marker ,trace bubble, watch close.
starts growing,time to empty... :(

 

[ColoredRock]

I marked mine.. here is the last pic I took before deciding:

 

[jrmailo]

A quick update on the post:

I had reached out to SCA aquarium Steve Chow about the air bubbles inside the silicone seams and while he doesn’t think there’s an immediate danger, he was happily offering to send me a replacement unit this Monday.

With their excellent customer service (responding on the weekends after thanks giving and the readiness to correct their mistake), I would wholeheartedly recommend SCA aquarium to other looking to purchase an aquarium.

While I did run into an issue as stated in this post, it might be anecdotal as the rest of the tank construction was almost flawless in terms of construction and silicone seams.
Thank you everyone who had given help to my post and happy reefing!
cheers!