New Frag Tank (Cut down 90RR)

[cilyjr]

Momentive suggested that ge iron grip is a neutral cure 100% silicone adhesive and can be bought at Lowe's near the glue.

They did not speculate on tank building nor did I ask about it. Momentive will not tell you their products are safe in the aquarium. That said, any 100% silicone should be fine provided it has adequate curing time.

Anyway I do hope your frag tank works out. It looks very nice on that shelf.

 

[Arron209]

Awesome build. Can't wait to see some frags in there!

 

[ithk21620]

The tank has been up and running for a week. I still haven't moved all my frags that have been sitting on my sand bed yet but I plan to this weekend if I have time.

I forgot to update the post to show how I built the frag rack legs so there won't be build up of detritus in them.

The light I have obviously won't be enough for the new frag tank so I plan to light half the tank with my existing T5 light and buy a LED or MH light for the other side. Just waiting for the right deal.

 

[ithk21620]

I can say that over the last year the frag tank has held up great. I am in the process of completely redoing my fish room so the tank has moved and is happily filled with frags

 

[TaiVo]

I have been using a plastic tub that I bought from HD for a frag tank for the last couple years. The tub is made to mix concrete in and looks like this

The tub worked good but when my tank crashed I took it offline because I didn't have anything to keep in it anymore and it was basically a giant algae farm since everything went to crap in a hurry after the crash.

Now 7 months later my system is back to where I want it and everything is growing good. I have a few large z/p colonies that survived the crash and a few others too that I want to frag to start building up my "Coral Fund" again. I didn't want to use the same black tub for a frag tank and I have looked around for one that is already build but they are not cheap by any means.

I then came up with the idea of cutting down a 40B tank because I didn't want my frag tank anymore than 12" tall. Then I was going to drill it for an overflow and such. Then I remembered that my friend had a 90RR sitting in has garage that he wouldn't use because it had some chips in the corner and he didn't trust it anymore. I talked to him about it and he agreed to give it to me for my "experiment"

I picked the tank up and went to work. I first removed the top trim piece.

Then I removed the overflow from the tank so I could cut it down to size later. I found this to be one of the hardest parts to remove.

I originally thought about taking a 4" grinder with a diamond blade to the tank but with the thick glass and the possibility of getting small glass chunks all over my basement I decided to try something different.

I removed the caulk from the tank as far down as I wanted to cut off and then carefully worked a thin blade between the sheets of glass to break the seal down to that point.

I did this one panel at a time starting with the end panels since they were the inside piece of glass. Then I took a glass cutter and from the inside scored the panels.

I found some scrap metal I had laying around to use for the breaking point on the outside of the tank

Then I gently held the tank while stepping on the piece I wanted to break off.

It worked! Now to just do the rest of the panels one at a time.

The second end panel went good as well, then came the first long panel. This one was very difficult to score since I couldn't get into the tank very good. Well it showed when I broke it. The panel didn't break along the score line the whole way.

I was not happy but I still went ahead and removed the last panel and would decide what to do with the broken one later.

After I had the sides done I had to make the decision to either cut it down some more (to the bottom of the bad break) which would make it 7" tall or try to replace the front panel with a piece I had removed from the tank.

I decided that if I can break the removed panel down to the correct size I would replace the bad one so I could still have the 12" tank I originally wanted.

That is where I ended last night.

Hi! Thank you so much for this thread. I’m planning on attempting to do this to a 125gal soon. I’m so nervous with the long side panel,too. What glass cutter did you use? I want to get one from amazon. And can you give me some tips to avoid what happened to that side? Thank you!

 

[ithk21620]

Hi! Thank you so much for this thread. I’m planning on attempting to do this to a 125gal soon. I’m so nervous with the long side panel,too. What glass cutter did you use? I want to get one from amazon. And can you give me some tips to avoid what happened to that side? Thank you!

Sorry, I didn't see a notification for this post. I just used a standard hand glass scorer/cutter. I would say the biggest thing for getting the large panel to break clean would be to make sure you have a nice straight score line. Then use something longer than the panel to prop the break point up and have someone help you break the panel so you can get uniform pressure along the entire piece.

Good Luck!