HOW TO: Recycle/refurbish/restore tanks!

sagedrake690

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Heya guys, I searched the site and couldn't find anything with the key words refurbish and there are 1994 pages of forums in the equipment section. This is a thread for refurbishing tanks and all information regarding repair and restoration! I recently struck a deal on craigslist for a crapped out 55gal tank. The guy was moving and also destroyed the glass with scotch brite pads and had a ton of dead coralline algae. DO NOT USE SCOTCH BRITE PADS TO CLEAN GLASS! They will tear up glass surfaces for anyone new to cleaning calcium off! I have had better outcome from the metal shaving style of steel wool and a plastic/metal scraper. You will do a lot less work if you soak it in vinegar though. Get a paper towel soaked in vinegar and stick it to the calcified surfaces.
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So the coraline algae got so bad, it got under the calking. If you get growth and erosion on your calking, find the glass backed edge and slice off the inner calk. The glass backed edge is the side of the calking you can slide a razor blade under and hit glass; If your razor will slide between the plates, you found the wrong edge. The trick is to slice off the bad inner calking leaving the calking between the plates still intact. Once that's off, clean and dry the area to be re-calked. Apply a nice thick straight even line of calking and then rub the ends to seal them. Then take your finger, apply a little pressure. You don't wanna wipe it off, so much as push it into the seal spread its area of coverage to ensure it wont leak.
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This glass makes me sad! I hope the cerium oxide can buff 99% of this. It wouldn't get rid of the scratches made from say a rock or something but pads and scraping scratches yes! Ordered 50G from Amazon; should be here tomorrow, also gonna buff up my glasses lenses lol stuff works on diamonds to acrylic!
Will post more as I go along!
 
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sagedrake690

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Lol the oxide should be coming tomorrow. I'm gonna need to get a buffer wheel too but they should be cheap enough. I gotta go to WM in the AM anyway so I should have an update too. I'm gonna try to start a channel on youtube I think and document my experiments! Here is the before pic. Quality is not good on this cam I apologize but you can see there was tons of this stuff. Vinegar is your friend here lol!
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Don't mind the funny lookin catfish lol he hopped in there as cats do.
 

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Cerium oxide as you may know is extremely messy. I don't know if the cerium oxide I got from Amazon was the real stuff, but from my experience it didn't put even a dent on surface scratches. That was with a felt wheel and a variable speed drill.
I hope you have better luck than I did.
 
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sagedrake690

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Well the Cerium oxide came in today and I got a felt wheel only to realize my girlfriends mother has my power drill lol. Gotta get it tomorrow but this is what it looks like. 50G's of this stuff for 10 bucks and a tiny bit goes a very far way. The water will evaporate and you can recycle the used material.

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It took an hour but I can hand polish my glasses! (probably better to go slow with lenses anyway) This is a stark difference. It's like I'm wearing new glasses!!! Everything is so sharp and vibrant now! lol It works best in warmer water/ making a heavy paste almost like super thick paint. as you heat it with friction it will get more effective. coat the wheel in it first, then start polishing. A tiny bit goes soooooo far!!!! This amount can easily do my tank. It may take a while and the polishing may go really slow but I should see a big difference. 20201019_182308.jpg
 
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sagedrake690

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I got the stand for it finally and got it put on. I cleaned the refugium below and the inside of the wooden cupboard. There was salt creep all over everything! Gotta watch that salt creep! as you can see the sump is also a massive biofilter when done right. I'm going to have the water drain into the center area from the bottom up through spider web filter and carbon then it overflows into the next area that will have live rock on the bottom and loose polyester spider web filter on top. It will drain through and begin filling up the outside area with filtered. In there, I will have mud with nothing but tons of plants and pods. going to be ordering eelgrass to make a grassy field in the tank and new refugium.
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I'm poor AF and this was not meant to have anything more than clean up crew and plants but others found their way in and I cant just kill something like that, so I went out and got that tank for that one fish...lol.

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Here is a few pics of my stagnant water microfauna breeder. All of those particles are living stuff lol.
 
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sagedrake690

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Well here is is so far! I have been gfocusing on this one area of the tank in the left corner with heaviest scratching. I have reduced it down quite drastically as you can see. This corner used to look very foggy from schratching but has cleared up a lot. It's going to take a while to get it finished and I might have to come back to it in sections but if the paste dries, just mist it with water, moisten the wheel and start up again. A little goes a very long way and you dont feel like you're wasting much because splatter can just be reused and moistened again. It's quite amazing stuff really.
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sagedrake690

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Sorry guys! I been out and busy. I never got on anymore lol. Im currently upgrading my pc too. I have too much gene lol. I have tons of projects all the time.
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First one was my mineral oil pc....I need to change my heatsink because the old one was pulling so hard on the clips that the arms held onto snapped and Im waiting for payday to get my new one. The oild protected my pc from overheating. It got to 90c and I was like why is my pc so hot?! The heatsink has snapped off while running lol. But the one ai got to replace this old one was too large and the psu was not clearing it. I. Gotta get a smaller one and I have upgraded the lid to hold all the parts on it.
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Thats so annoying....like 1cm too long. Rawr....

As for that old 55gal
Eh. They myth is real only for minor stuff. It does work and did quite well on most of the scratches but if you had heavy scratching like that did, theres only so much you can do. Yes, go with acrylic for some things, others use glass. Acrylic is its own nightmare in terms of warping and heat stress etc. But I have since removed the tank and tried to focus more on frag tanking for the crabs.
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Lol my porcelain crab molted! Just took this today. The 55gal was converted into a tank for turtles and hermits and has been thrown away to upgrade. Im now using this 2ftx3ft wood frame and acrylic bottom pieces and the sides are clear vinyl.
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I gave up on coral as I dont have the funds to care for them right now and am not skilled enough to complete a saltwater environment without filtration.

This freshwater tank is over 1 year old and going on 7 months with no ferts filters or feeding. I been dumping all my money currently into investments in hopes that one will pick up traction to get us out of our situation. 15k for 5 acres is the goal to save so I can buy land and build a house. I wish to give all my creatures more room and have land to farm a bit for myself. I been ghost on this and I do apologize. I will try to post some of my projects of other threads.

I currently have 25 animals in total and am looking to get into some kind of career path with wildlife.
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This is lizard land. It has a 5 lined skink that was sick when I caught him. (Upper respiratory infection) He has since bounced back and is looking perky and chipper! There are 2 wild grey swifts and 1 bahama anole.

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Office was converted to an open cage bird room. They appreciate this more loo.
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I have been raising some dendrobates powder blues in my freshwater tank. Once they are ready to go into their tank I will be getting a freshwater puffer.
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This is the tank thats had no ferts filters or co2 and no feeding for 7 months. Ive had one round of baby guppies that have been moved here to my iguanas/turtle tank and she just gave birth again. Theres also colorful shrimp in there too that keep breeding lol.
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This is patty. She was a wild catch from florida and has grown pretty at home here. She loves scratches behind her ears lol.

As to the original point of the post....if the scratches are minor enough, take the tank. You can buff them out. If they are heavy....its up to you. Is it worth savin money? If youre poor like me....it might be good enough to hold you over lol.
 

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