top brace cracked on 600 gal acrylic help!(photos)

[Untamed12]

If there is some comfort, it is my understanding that the weld will actually be stronger than the surrounding acrylic.

 

[reefkoi]

yeah especially since its now 1.5" thick in this area. I am not worried at all now. At first I freaked, but you know thats the beauty of acrylic, its workable, drillable, repairable. Atleast thats what I'm going to go with.
Chris

 

[CMcNeil]

IMO 90% of acrylic tanks are UNDERBUILT.my guess why it cracked is a combo of things,1 the corner radius is kind of small(IMO they should be 2-3" raduis),2 tank top brace built too thin,3 MH lights blasting the brace.i see alot of large tanks being built and shown on RC that IMO are ticking time bombs(i see one 600g on here made from 1/2" all the way around)it WILL FAIL in a few years at best.

 

[CMcNeil]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8803181#post8803181 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Untamed12
If there is some comfort, it is my understanding that the weld will actually be stronger than the surrounding acrylic.

completely wrong,the glue is rated way lower in PSI than the sheet.
a scab fix of the brace is only a temp fix and bound to fail you at a later date.

 

[reefkoi]

It's holding fine, I have talked with several manufactures, they all assured me the tank will be fine now that I have moved my MH lights away from the braces and patched the crack.

 

[seti2020]

If you have access to chloroform, you can glue acrylic together. First clean area (wash with water, then wipe with ethenaol, let dry). Place a piece of stock acrylic over crack (like a patch). Then squirt chloroform into seam (capillary action). It will dry within a couple minutes (pretty strong to), takes a full day to cure. And when it cures it welds plastic together.

 

[reefkoi]

thats what we did several months ago when this all took place, but thanks for the tip!
Chris

 

[cbui2]

sorry to hear that Chris, you have the same specs as mine but i had 1" eurobrace and sides except the bottom which was 3/4". i had ran my LA3 for 30hrs. straight just to test the heat on my eurobrace which was only 74deg with 3 PFO 400w 14k. the spread for fixtures was unbelievable and made no direct contact to eurobrace. weld on 16 is also good for acrylic glue