Vince's custom 415

[MatthewLaw]

wow. seems like a warranty issue but at this point the livestock may be the top priority.

i assume it wont be too hard to do a minor (temporary) re-plumbing so the sumps can be used for filtration of the temp tanks.

 

[phurst]

We may atempt just that, but the sump and fuge are under the big tank, and the 180 is on the other side of the room. Maybe with some flex tubing we can get it done.

 

[MatthewLaw]

although it may turn into a jungle gym, why not run PVC across the room. I purchased 10' of 3/4" for about $2.50 at LOWES. shouldnt be too difficult to do and not very expensive.

 

[phurst]

So, there have been further developments. After the bottom seam failed, we asked a local who works with acrylic to come have a look since we weren't having any luck getting in touch with Sean (it was Sunday, I understand). We got a bunch of people together to move the tank to an appropriate work surface, and the entire bottom panel fell off. the tank was completely empty, and the panel just fell off under it's own weight. This led us to a couple of realizations.

1) Several of the panels are out of square by 1/4" or more. In particular, the bottom panel was 3/8" narrower in the center than the sides.

2) the bonding on many of the seams was poor to say the least. Where the panels separated, the seams are clean and smooth as the day they were manufactured. Solvent by definition "melts" the acrylic during the bonding process. There was NO evidence of this. All the seams separated cleanly and left NO marks or evidence of solvent action.

The tank is, in our opinion unsalavagable at this point. We'll wait to hopefully hear from Sean tomorrow and decide what to do now. I have a hard time believing anything but the construction of the tank is at fault here.

 

[MatthewLaw]

so basically a minimal and downright insufficient amount of solvent was applied to the bottom AND the panels were not uniform width?

if that is the case then cant the company make a NEW bottom panel and THOROUGHLY glue it in?

 

[phurst]

Dunno, guess we'll see, but that's not the only panel that's not uniform.

 

[phurst]

I just updated a different thread about this tank, and thought I should mention the status here:

The tank owner and myself, along with a couple of local club members (none of us with ANY acrylic experience), all got together with a bunch of beer, lots and lots of weldon, a dremel and some 1/4 round acrylic and rebuilt the tank. It's been up and running trouble free for 9 months now (2 months longer than the original 'professional' build. The original builder appears to have gone out of business not long after the tank failure.