How old is too old?

[TheHurricane]

The wife has told me it's time. Go big or go home. I am wanting a 100 plus gallon tank and my question is this.

If I buy a used tank, at what age will a tank start to fail? In general. I realise there are a lot of factors. Any input is greatly appreciated.

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[Heath]

I had a 2 year old tank that I bought new give out, so its a crap shoot.

 

[Eckolancer]

I had a 90 gallon oceanic tank that has a date of 1999, Still works great. I used it for freshwater then salt now my brother is using it for freshwater. The longest it sat was about 6 months without water. The corner seals are pretty much gone but holds water fine. I built the first stand out of 2x4s and skinned it with thin plywood. My brother decided to use 4x4s in unskinned.


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[Oscarmk]

@TheHurricane wrote:

I think it depends on a lot of factors, some of them outside of our control. I think mainly it is the quality and thickness of the glass used, how good the silicone bond is, i.e. No bubbles and only a few mm thickness for the silicone bond. Also I think it depends on how the tank is sitting is sitting leveled on a flat surface or not?. The aquarium manufacturer is also relevant, but the factor we don't control here is who from that manufacturer built the tank that day, could be a newbie or a veteran and that is a big difference imo. I would say it also depends on where the tank rests, concrete, carpet?, foundation issues on home?, excessive or bad shimming?. I try not to think too much about it, but there are a ton of factors, and that many gallons dumped in your house is a scary thought.

That being said even the most expensive tank can fail unfortunately, this is the main reason why I have decided 75 g is as much risk as I want to take, I cant fathom 300 g flood on my house.

Talking about years IMHO 5-6 years starts getting little old, personally my plan is to get a new tank at 4-5 years even if the tank looks perfect, I just don't want to risk it.

 

[Eckolancer]

Reason I brought up the stand is the stand can make or break the seals on a tank. If your tank is slightly unlevel it will put stress on the seals.


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[TheHurricane]

Thanks for the info. The plan is to have a steel stand made and over build it like crazy.

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[Oscarmk]

@TheHurricane wrote:

From what I have read, while steel stands are very sturdy, it is basically impossible for them to be completely straight, and often only support a tank by its corners. Based on a lot of reading it seems like wood stands generally do a better job.

 

[denierlexiese]

I have multiple tanks from the 90s. Never had a leak problem. I do have leak detectors all around the tanks but I would recommend that with any tanks at $10 a pop for the leak detector everyone use them.

I have heard of people using tanks from the 80s.

 

[Oscarmk]

@denierlexiese wrote:

I have also seen several people using tanks from the 90s, IMHO it seems like they are better quality compared to newer tanks, the glass on average seems to be thicker, and the tanks weren't usually massively mass produced, which ends up relaxing some of the inspections on them. It could also be that the old tanks just were in comparisson and taking into account inflation just were more expensive than they are now, which allowed manufacturers to do a better work on them. This is just my theory. IMHO the same thing can be seen with old cars vs new cars.

 

[TheHurricane]

Picking up a 180+ on saturday!

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[Eckolancer]

That tank looks nice


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