crack in sump DIY FIX and changing of compartments

Hi All

My sump took a knock yesterday when I picked it up from the guy I got it from and I need to repair it myself now the question I would like to ask is how do I need to go about it? Here are some pics of the crack and were it is situated. The way I know best is to replace the whole side pain of glass But it’s a real mission as I am sure you can imagine now in your opinions can I get away with an over lapping glass patch with this crack or do I need to go the full Monty? The size is L1000mm x H500mm x W240mm made with 6mm glass. The crack is about 80mm long.

Regards

Jpvd007

 

Here is a crack in my 3ft tank fixed with silicone some 3 or 4 months ago..... I have another such tank in the fishroom which was fixed a couple of years ago....



Crack as seen from the front..... (ignore the white line on the front glass.... just masking tape which I must still clean off).

 

@Cheetah
Well you see the sump is braced in 3 places along were the crack can run so my thinking is that the tank is more solid because of this and I can get away with a patch job like yours except I will silicon a piece of gall over the affected area.

 

I assume you mean a piece of Glass and of course it will be a better seal than mine and should thus be more (totally) effective.... Yep!... no need to replace the pane....

 

Well I decided to replace the side of the sump instead of just doing to quick fix. The reason for this was 2 fold, firstly I did not want to run the risk of the quick fix failing on me in the middle of the night as it will be running 2 of my grow out tanks and I cannot afford a nasty surprise like that, secondly I wanted to change the setup of the sump from marine to the style Dirk talks about in this thread http://www.tropicalaquarium.co.za/s...ltration-rates-flow-and-other-questions/page3
I will try and explain as best I can what I did exactly with the help of photos that I took along the process.

As you can see from the pics in the first post above one of the long sides of the sump was damaged and I removed it with a tape measure witch a bought especially for R20 it works a dream. You have to slide it in between the two glass pains and use a sawing action and it just glides through like a hot knife through butter, it does get a bit tricky when you get to those 90 deg turns thou if you take your time it will do it but if not slightly tilt the glass after cutting the opposite side free and work it in to the bottom seal from there.


As you can see in the pic above there is a reason why you go out and buy a R20 tape measure.
The old and the new.




I also decided to re-do all the silicone as I am going to need to put the supports for the egg crating for the media to rest on flush with the side of the sump wall of witch I am using 3 strips of 10mm glass L600mm x H50mm you will see these in later posts.

 

Once I had meticulously cleaned all the old silicone off the edges of where the old glass was I taped the sides ready for seating the new glass in place.

I then ran a bead of silicone all around the edge were the glass comes into contact with each other and
placed the new sheet in its place, once sticking the electrical tape on to the new glass sheet I wiped off
the excess silicone on the outside with a wet finger. Then the same on the inside being careful not to leave
silicone where the 10mm egg crate support will be stuck flush against the long side glass sheet.

The box tape was put on to pull the short side panels in as they pulled apart after taking off the old glass.



Now we wait for 24 hours before doing the inside work.

 

open for comments and suggestions.

 

@jpvd007 - You are a brave man. This is a whole other level of DIY. I don't want to curse it but it looks like a succesful job. Now I know who to take my tank to when it need a panel removed/replaced. :wink:

 

Very neat job. Post pics of end results please.

 

So the side sheet of glass is in place and set nicely, I did a water test and all is good so it’s time to move on and insert the dividers. I first put the intake side of the sump divider in and it goes flush with the bottom of the sump and is 400mm high. Then I placed the first 10mm support in place, not that I have removed the silicone from the bottom edges so that all the dividers are square and flush with the side and not resting on top of old silicone from the original build and the new side I replaced.








































































































I once I had fixed all the 10mm supports in I resealed all the edges around the bottom of the sump were I removed it to put in the dividers. Note I am using 3 x 10mm dividers as the weight of the gravel and other media is going to be excessive on the egg crating and I am afraid it will bend and give way.

 

So the final piece was put in this evening. It’s the end wall of the middle compartment to hold the media, I placed it on top of the 10mm supports and now it is all done. I will do the final water test tomorrow and then set it up on Friday.

 

Good job. Very informative...
I will use some of your techniques...

 

@jpvd007 wow neato! nice job! and good tip on the tape measure dude

+1

 

All working and all good no leaks!!

 

Looking good!