Something has eaten its way through my plywood tank! Need help on repair!

Mr_Stian · Oct 2, 2020

I have not thought about that! That would have been very easy!

The only downside to this opposed to what I already have done is that I don't have the core of the plywood exposed to dry out the rest of the humidity...

Anyway I have already done the fiberglass...

lavoisier · Oct 3, 2020

You do not need a piece of glass (the epoxied fiberglass provides both more strength and is entirely water proof seals permanently without leaks).

Mr_Stian · Oct 4, 2020

Today i filled up the tank with water again. Hoping that everything is OK. Since i have 4 tanks that i use as the sump, i have had a smaller pump to pump water to the first of these tanks to circulate the water through a standard garden hose. Today i found out that there had been a kink in the hose causing the flow to be very little. Hoping that the water inside the first tank of the sump has not gone bad on me.

The final solution that i went with was, as the pictures in previous posts shows, that i drilled a hole to remove the part of the wall that was damaged, covered this with 2 layers of fibreglass and then 2 coats of Pondshield epoxy. There is no movement of the fibreglass (this is slightly flexible) and no leaks. I have probably added around 400 liters of fresh saltwater to the tank...

I also managed to get the sea urchin that i have in the DT out of there and into the sump. See the below picture. Hopefully i have managed to get the thing responsible for the damage out of the tank.

Thanks for all your help in this thread!

AlexG · Oct 4, 2020

Mr_Stian said:
Today i filled up the tank with water again. Hoping that everything is OK. Since i have 4 tanks that i use as the sump, i have had a smaller pump to pump water to the first of these tanks to circulate the water through a standard garden hose. Today i found out that there had been a kink in the hose causing the flow to be very little. Hoping that the water inside the first tank of the sump has not gone bad on me.

The final solution that i went with was, as the pictures in previous posts shows, that i drilled a hole to remove the part of the wall that was damaged, covered this with 2 layers of fibreglass and then 2 coats of Pondshield epoxy. There is no movement of the fibreglass (this is slightly flexible) and no leaks. I have probably added around 400 liters of fresh saltwater to the tank...

I also managed to get the sea urchin that i have in the DT out of there and into the sump. See the below picture. Hopefully i have managed to get the thing responsible for the damage out of the tank.

Thanks for all your help in this thread!

Looks like a rock boring urchin. I had a couple of these that came in on the live rock. Once I caught of them eating an Acropora they were banished to my big fish tank where the puffers and triggers are them. I am glad it did not do more damage.

Mr_Stian · Oct 5, 2020

I had 2 of these. One i removed almost a year ago because it was tipping over rocks. Both of them came with some of the rock that i have. Both have been with me for many years without causing much problems. I might return the cleaner shrimp to the DT now that i am more convinced that the culprit has been caught.