My tank sprung a leak, can i silicone overtop of seam to fix it?
 

Hi. I woke up to my tank leaking. Its a 72 gallon bowfront. The leak is coming from the bottom seam on the front middle of the bow. So my question is can i silicone overtop of the seam. Or do i have to take off the old silicon to do this. It looks like it would be hard to take the bottom out to do this. Would probably be even harder working with the bow. My boyfriend wants to just go overtop but i thought id ask to double check as i dont want to have another leak down the road. Any advice?

IMO i would reseal the entire tank. Have had this happen before, better safe than sorry.

You need to reseal the entire tank as water will eventuly work its way to the hole again. take it tio a reputable place that makes tanks. I say this because you need to get the silicone to push all the way through to the opisit side where the leak is, otherwise there will be a potentile for a week spot. with persure from the water in the tank you dan't want the front glass to clack or the sem to start leaking again. One other thing if the area that is being fixed is not completely dry the silicone will not adhear to it and will leak again.

Bill

Blahhhh, thats what i figured. Im probably better off buying another tank. Thanks for letting me know, would have hated for a bigger mess to have happened down the road.

It would be cheaper to fix this tank than to buy an new one unless you want to upgrade xmas present to self..

Iv never done this before. To reseal do i need to take the silicone off and fully seperate that glass to reseal it? Theirs black trim along the outer rim. Can i remove the silicone on the inside and not take the glass apart, and then redo it only on the inside. Dont know if that makes sence or not, lol

Bowfronts are notorious for failing. A bit late to this party but I'll throw in my $0.02 anyhow: reseal the tank is pretty much your only option, but also look at your stand and see if there's any way to beef it up, recheck the levelness, etc. because of the bowfront's tendency to spring leaks down the road -any tiny wobble is going to stress those seams and potentially cause another leak down the road.

As for resealing, I've never done this either, but from what I understand, you just cut away the exposed silicone. You don't need to pull the glass apart - just cut the old silicone, clean the glass as best as humanly possible so that the new silicone is adhering to glass and not a thin film of old silicone, and the rebead the corners.

I don't think you need to worry about the black trim on top. Just the corner seams and the bottom panel seams.

(I think, anyhow. :) Good luck!)

Did this on a 33g, (just cut the exposed silicone, not disassemble) just put in a new bead. Figured with the old silicone cleaned off wasn't like the very thin joint remaining would cause much problem with the new silicone bonding to the glass.

Then again this was a rectangle tank I had in a unfinished basement soaking LR for a few months, not a Bow on the main floor.

Thanks for explaining how. Doesnt sounds as bad as i had been picturing but i guess well see.
Its on the proper bowfront stand, though im sure we could make it much more stable. I bought it used and it was in rough shape when i bought it, so i guess i should have seen it coming.
I think ill start peeling away at the silicone and see how clean i can get it. I figure the actual silicone part should be easy, it the cleaning it after peeling it off that sounds hard.
Would rubbing alcahole or paint thinner clean off the old resedue once iv peeled the old silicone off?

use rubbing alcohol on the glass