DAS 145G Reef Project...removing all the silicone. 5/15

B

Brad Ward

Premium Member
Do you know it leaks? If so, I would clean it up and reseal the seams. If you don't know, fill it up with water and see if it does. What are you waiting for? If it leaks, chances are it won't be a fast leak, so don't expect any disasters that way. I would fill it and let it sit overnight. That's the first step.

Go for it!
 
Leaking tanks in the garage are called "garage floor washers". Fill it, find the leak, then figure out if it can be sealed without taking the offending seal
apart. If it has to come apart that's when it gets fun!!

I've fixed a few leakers over the years. I'll be interested in knowing where the leak is and how big.

John
 
I wouldn't leave it on the stand. The water will damage it. You should be able to tell without towels, etc. If the bottom has no frame put some sort of padding under it though.

John
 
The bottom of this tank has a plywood sheet glued to the bottom glass. DAS makes wierd tanks, imho. I'm looking foward to seeing this thread progress.
 
Hmmm......glued? Are you sure about that? I have never seen that :shock: .

If you could get a couple of saw horses to put the tank on temporarily and only fill it up a few inches this would help. It wont break and you don't have to worry about ruining the stand.

After you get a few inches of water in the tank use some sort of compressed air shot through a small hole and run it along the outside edges of the seams to determine where the leak is The air bubbles in the tank will be the give away. Mark that area on the outside with a marker of some sort and clean the inside of the tank, removing the silicone in that area, in the marked location. After that simply prepare the surfaces and reapply a new bead of appropriate (Dow Corning 999-A) 100% silicone.
:lol: Did any of that make sense?

If no leak is found around the bottom then place the tank on the garage floor and fill it up all the way. Run the air up along the vertical seams and find the leak. Once the airbubbles are spotted and marked you know what to do.
 
The best solution would be to remove "all" of the old silicone and reseal it, now that is not removing the silicone between panes of glass just the bead at the inside of the tank. The new silicone will not properly adhere to the old silicone and a patch may not hold up. The only way I would patch it is if the leak was very close to the top of tank, the least amount of pressure on it the better.
This is only my opinion but at least you could be sure it would hold up.
 
If the wood is removeable, that is news to me David.

I would be a little worried putting it on a couple of saw horses. It is a very heavy tank, and they better be some darn good ones. Filling it up with a couple of inches of water sounds safe, but again those horses better be quality made.
 
Lindsey, are the seals black or clear? If black then I think youll use Dow Corning 795. The local dealer is right around the corner from where I work. I still have 3/4 of a tube left over from mounting my powerhads to Mag Floats. your welcome to it. Let me know if you need anything picked up.
 
The compressed air idea is great but be careful. You could do more damage or damage it where it wasn't already leaking. The pressure behind compressed air could blow a hole through the existiing silicone.

My DAS 115 doesn't have wood on the entire bottom, just at the seam locations. I've seen a lot of DAS tanks that did however. I know silicone sticks to wood very well :shock:
 
@tangalone wrote:
The thing i'm not looking forward to is dealing with anything that may be going on behind or in the overflow/filter box. :shock: :shock: said:
The overflow box is not so hard to take out if it is sealed in. I had 12 DAS tanks with overflows (the pet store fixtures), the overflows are sealed in with a glob of sealant in about the middle of the overflow. It takes some patience but with a flat blade you can work through the sealant and the overflow will come right out!

John
Click to expand...
 
Lindsey, ive got an idea. Ive got a couple of telecom battery racks out here in my garage piled up with junk. They are about three feet long and about 15 inches wide by about 24 inches tall. Very sturdy steel constructon. Each one can hold about 800 lbs of telecom batteries. We could put one under each end for support and give you a good working height to fill and find the leak. Let me know.
 
@bluewater wrote:
Each one can hold about 800 lbs of telecom batteries. said:
Just be sure the tank construction can withstand the unsupported weight betweend the stands or it'll snap in two (followed by a BIG leak).

John
Click to expand...
 
awesome, good job! Its a pain huh? It will be well worth it tho.
I think we do need some pics of you in that tank scraping away!

Thanks again for bringing that halimeda to meeting! I'll set you up with a few frags once the tanks ready.
 
Any new updates?? By now you should have all silicone removed, new silicone installed and cured and water in that tank!!!

Whats the true status???
 
WELL, I'd love to help, just don't know when I would be available. I am going to the coast for the weekend starting Thursday and back on Tuesday and this is my busy season and have been working my tail off.
If your still puttering with it by the time the frag swap gets here I may have to come by and see what you have going on.
Thats bad news about the pane being loose as you stated. The bad thing is if you have to reseal between panes, the whole tank would have to be torn apart to do it and all panes would have to be cleaned and resealed for a positive seal! Best bet right now is to remove all silicone from inside tank and lets see if we can come up with a solution to finish.
Did you get the filter box out?
 
Wish I had read this thread before today. I completely and totally disagree with the suggestion of just replacing the silicone on the inside and not between the glass. I resealed a DAS 115 once and learned the hard way. It was in my house 1 week before I had to dry the carpet and siphon it at 3am. If there is a leak, you need to completely remove the back panel of glass, remove every trace of silicone, and reseal it. I can provide more detail later today.
 
Are you going to leave those wooden posts on the front corners?

I dropped my DAS on the ground when I got it home from the previous owner and 2 1/2 years later it's still leak free!

I even still have the internal overflow/skimmer/carbon combo in mine and have lots of different types of corals flourishing in there.

Just my experience on the DAS.
 
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