Habitat - Indoor :: My Invertebrate Aquarium Build Thread

[SINI5T3R]

I have ordered the beginning stages of my invert tank setup. got my k1 media shipping..my pumps...some air equipment and I got a stand for my tank. I will be updating this thread with my build and how to's for people that want to use anything I'm doing. So far I'm about 125$ into it and have not even got half of what I want lol. Will be setting stuff up in a few days so stay tuned!

[steve]

Great, it's been awhile since we had a build thread!

[SINI5T3R]

I have not done a build Thread in a while!! like years! I got out of reptiles for a while and all that because I had a baby and now shes 8 months old and I have some time to sit at home and be bored plus I need a hobby LOL!

So Part 1 of my build has started and that was cleaning out the tank I had and getting my new Dresser over. I ran into 1 problem already tho. When I was cleaning out my tank i noticed my undertank heater for my Colorado River Toad had cracked the bottom of my tank. was a pretty good crack and i could feel the groove of the crack from the inside but not the outside of the tank. I looked online and it says bottom of tank cracks are easy to fix out of all the cracks which i thought was weird because you would think that would be the worst type of crack but i guess not lol. So i went to wal-mart and got some waterproof silicone and I could not figure out what to use for the glass to cover the crack with...so as I was walking down isles i found the perfect thing to use which could come in handy for any of you guys that end up getting cracks...

PICTURE FRAMES!!!! they have the perfect pieces and sizes of glass lol. so i bought 2 just incase one was not enough. i ended up using a big sheet of glass and having to brake the second into smaller pieces and it today when i woke up it looks pretty good and sealed. i used a LOT of silicone just to make sure its nice and sealed. Hopefully it holds water or else im out of a tank and will need to find a new one. I hope i can use this tank tho because I like how its like a wide opposed to the normal tall and long aquariums.

will keep you updated and post tomorrow about my first water test!

[steve]

So you add the plate over it? Should work, though the edges are probably not sanded and pretty sharp. But depending on the size of the tank, the amount of water and how the crack happened, I'd be pretty cautious.

[SINI5T3R]

Yeah just put large ammounts of silicone over one side of the picture frame and lay it down on to the cracks and put more around the edges. I'm going to have a good thickness of sand in my aquarium so nothing should be getting to that glass and it's completely covered with silicone so no edges really.

[steve]

Isn't there a risk of the crack getting bigger/longer?

[SINI5T3R]

I watched like 5 videos on re sealing cracks and not one video said anything about that. It says to just use a generous ammount of silicone and it should be good to go. I figured the same thing but everyone else filled there tanks with water on the videos and it looked great. I even seen one guy use the bottom flat piece of a CD Case (the plastic two sided cases a CD comes in) and it even worked but he used like half a tube of silicone lol. i used a little more then half a tube on the silicone i used but it was a good size crack. ill take pictures and post them and attempt my first water fill today. I dont even know if this tank is strong enough to hold water but hopefully it is.

[steve]

Short term it should be OK, but long term I'm not. How big is the tank? I think most tank bottoms are tempered, but maybe that's changed.

[SINI5T3R]

55 gal. I have water in it right now in my front yard so going to see if there is any leaks but did not see any so far and it seems to hold water pretty good

[steve]

Alright, good luck!

[SINI5T3R]

Welp, the tank leaks....i put more stuff on the bottom part of the tank but it really dont matter i guess...im just going to get rid of it cheap as a reptile tank hopefully.


BUT good news. I found a 55 gal tank with everything and a stand that i really dont need but i guess i can put my tv on it lol... anyway...40$ for a 55 gal tank with stand and full setup and fish lol... going to go get it today in a few hours hopefully... here is a pic of the tank in the ad i found on craigslist but ill upload pics and maybe a video of my setup after im done with it today. i am supposed to be getting my filter media for my DIY filter and i got my powerhead pump yesterday...

[steve]

Pretty good... looks like they have an Aquaclear for filtration too.