refugium/sump diy

[carpenterwrasse]

The tank was techincally here before she was so.......

[Fally]

Use Weld-on instead of silicone.

[JustDavidP]

Hiya Fally....

They can't use Weld-on. In the first post, the author notes that it is a 20 gallon glass tank.

For those who don't know about Weld-on... it is a product used to FUSE acrylic. It doesn't really glue, but causes the acrylic to melt and fuse together. It will not do the same with glass.

Dave

[unleashed]

For what it's worth...

I found that MY only problem with using Lexan/Plexiglas is that it is not rigid enough. The "bond" is NOT what typically goes. Through trial and error, I found that what happens is that the baffle actually BOWS from the water pressure and eventually pops out. (I've never had a "raised" baffle blow..they simply do not have enough pressure on them) IT IS TRUE that silicone doesn't bond well with plexi/lexi..but it is good enough for our applications if it is thick enough. It is the bow that causes the baffle to pop out of that bond. Not the bond breaking down.

In my new SUMPZILLA, I used glass for the refugium side and Plexiglas for the baffles. All baffles were 1/4 inch except for the first, that takes all the pressure from the overflow. That one is 3/4 and is going NOWHERE



Dave

[pay very close attention to watching this sump i found out the hard way about using acrylic for baffles in a glass tank .ypu are very correct about the plexi bowing but what you havent noticed as of yet the preasure changes due to the bowing glass wont bow so it ends up breaking,we built out first simp this way and thought it was great planning until the preasure split out the end of the sump 85 gal of sump water ended up on my kitchen floor.good luck with that set up