Sump cracked last night

B

Brando5185

New member
My 40b sump with DIY baffles cracked on the long side last night. Water went everywhere.

Now I am looking at ordering a premade sump system. Must have skimmer section, fuge section and return section. I saw the Trigger systems sapphire 34 and like the way it looks. Does anyone have any suggestions to similar sumps they would recommend over the trigger? Thanks
 
Not sure. Baffles werent pressed in there tight. The baffle where it cracked was actually only siliconed on top above the water to keep it from falling over. It was to keep macro from getting into skimmer section.
 
Khazmodain said:
Are you sure they didn't become tight? Acrylic expands in water (for up to a few months).
Click to expand...

Did not know that. There was enough space for silicone to get between the end of the acrylic panel and the glass. I had to have plastic boxes on each side while silicone way drying to keep it from shifting.
 
Last edited:
Yes, acrylic can swell and crack the glass if there's not adequate spacing. Glass baffles generally work better on glass sumps.
 
I had this happen in the past. One thing I would mention is that even if you have space between the acrylic baffle and the tank, if you fill that space with silicone, there is still a likely chance that the tank will crack. Confined silicone becomes nearly incompressible the thinner it gets.

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Willistein said:
I had this happen in the past. One thing I would mention is that even if you have space between the acrylic baffle and the tank, if you fill that space with silicone, there is still a likely chance that the tank will crack. Confined silicone becomes nearly incompressible the thinner it gets.

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Click to expand...

I thought the silicone would have some compression give in it. Found out the hard way I was wrong. Trigger sump came in today. Its beautiful.
 
Yeah, it's an interesting and non-intuitive thing, it's actually almost perfectly incompressible.

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What I should have said in my first post was that it gets stiffer the thinner it gets. It's always nearly incompressible.

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Man you could make a bad *** sump for cheap out of acrylic. This one cost me around $100
40 gallon.
f798fdaa1029cfcdb154723bd75db196.jpg


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