What the hell happened?

[jeffopentax]

Woke up this morning to all kinds of strange motor/grinding sounds coming from the basement. What did I find? My 100g tank with a crack running from the bottom left corner to the top right. With about 5” of water left in it. From what my wife and I can piece together, it self destructed between midnight and 4am. There were no rocks near the front. It’s as though the front pane decided it wanted to be 2 pieces. What could have caused this?

The tape is my emergency solution to keep in what water was left until I could figure out what to do with the fish.


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[Shooter000]

Some sort of pressure point on that corner is my guess

 

[jeffopentax]

Some sort of pressure point on that corner is my guess

From what? I purposely keep everything away from the glass to prevent such a disaster. Evidently, i failed.


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[Sasha T]

Holy crap that sucks, I hope this goes as smoothly for you as these things can.

My 2 coppers;
1) Get a hold of a level, the more accurate the better, and do a center measurement and on the lip in the middle of each side of the stand's top. If the stand was uneven it could have been effectively "twisting" the tank.
2) CAREFULLY take the tank off the stand. Being rimless, if there's a pad under the tank it's not visible in the picture and if there's no pad or the pad is too thin, any slight bump, paint bead, or small stone could have been adding pressure to the glass, and if the surface it's on is at all uneven the weight of the tank could be poorly distributed, overloading one corner and causing the same "twisting" of the glass pane.

 

[jeffopentax]

@Sasha T I will check the stand once i get the tank off. The tank is not rimless, the trim on the stand is raised a couple inches to cover it. The tank is actually sitting on a 2x4 frame.

If any twisting was occurring, would it take 3.5 years to fail?


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[Sasha T]

@Sasha T I will check the stand once i get the tank off. The tank is not rimless, the trim on the stand is raised a couple inches to cover it. The tank is actually sitting on a 2x4 frame.
If any twisting was occurring, would it take 3.5 years to fail?

Oh, a recessed stand, didn't notice that.

Your tank has been up longer than I've been in the aquarium hobby, so I 100% defer to the more experienced members here. From what I have read prior to setting up my tanks, any torsion stress can potentially cause the silicon or the glass panes themselves to fail. I'm not suggesting that is what caused the failure, just where my mind immediately goes to, along the same lines as what Shooter000 suggested. Based on the picture you included, was there any foam core added between the tank and the 2x4's or was it sitting directly on the wood?

 

[Shooter000]

Soft Wood will expand over time when it becomes wet, especially if it very dry and gets wet that spot will bulge, may not of been the problem, but can be, also if there is a knot in the lumber that part will "not" shrink with the rest becoming a pressure point, take a close up of the stand side where the glass cracked

 

[jeffopentax]

Nothing between the tank frame and stand. Since the tank frame raises the bottom panes about an inch from the top of the stand I didn’t think it was necessary. I’ve been procrastinating with the final tear down, but will post pics of the stand when I do.


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[jeffopentax]

Finally got the tank off the stand, and it is dead level on 3 axis. No bumps or warps.

Chalk it up to bad luck i guess.


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[Shooter000]

Was the tank trim sitting flush on the 2x4s?, did you have a mat under the trim edge, see that left 2x4 how it's only maybe 1/16 lower than the long 2x4, even that little gap in height can cause the side panel to have little to no pressure on it forcing the front/back panel to take the pressure load, im just thinking out loud is al, food for thought

 

[jeffopentax]

I had no foam or mat of any kind. As far as I can tell everything is flush and level. Since there is no obvious cause, i can’t say that’s wrong. However, if something being off by 1/16” could cause a tank to fail, wouldn’t there be tanks cracking and failing all over the place?


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[Shooter000]

Mats really really help with any surface pressure consistency, not saying that's what happen, it just can is all, how long has the tank been on that stand for?, also sometimes the trim they use doesn't get put on perfect or glass is touching bottom of trim instead of having the layer of silicone between them on the bottom, and then sometimes shit happens just because and we never really find out the real cause, hope this doesn't stray you away from the hobby, keep us posted

 

[jeffopentax]

Tank had been filled and running since December 2018. Maybe it was a combination of the things you mentioned? Who knows?! Since I now have trust issues with glass, I’m thinking acrylic. Even though I hate how easily it scratches.


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[Salty Cracker]

Shooter is a bit of an expert with wood framing, I definitely wouldn't discount his thoughts on this (and only saying this so that it never happens again to any one if we can add to our knowledge base via your unfortunate accident). I actually got the wood for my frame from him, was very careful about level etc, but then I added cross members, a plywood sheet and then a piece of pink foam. For the extra cost of materials, it was a no brainer. I know I had seen some weird bottom glass failures and just wanted that extra layer of 100% support. Mine was frameless though, so it sat completely flush....

My $.02 I would never trust acrylic. It's easy enough to scratch glass even when being careful, and you simply never know the QC in acrylic sheeting. I would trust glass almost every time, but again, I'd be doing the same base construction, AND I might even add in egg crate on the bottom under the substrate as I've seen bottoms pop from just being touched with a piece of substrate (bottoms that were suspended and not supported by foam).

 

[jeffopentax]

As an aside, turns out the city won’t pick up the tank on regular or bulk pick up days. They’d rather collect some cash by me taking it to the dump. Anyone know how to disassemble a tank?

 

[Pistol]

carefully razor blade through the seams

 

[Salty Cracker]

As an aside, turns out the city won’t pick up the tank on regular or bulk pick up days. They’d rather collect some cash by me taking it to the dump. Anyone know how to disassemble a tank?

The item I used to split one open was a tree cutting wedge, and a razor blade. Any kind of plastic wedge though at the start of the seam, then cut away at the silicone as you push the 'wedge' deeper. popsicle sticks might even work, just don't use metal, those sheets can explode pretty spectacularly.

 

[TORX]

I do the same as Salty, only I also heat the seam evenly with a heat gun. The silicone is a little more pliable at that point. Of coarse the other option is a large tarp and a hammer or maybe a shooting range.

 

[jeffopentax]

I do the same as Salty, only I also heat the seam evenly with a heat gun. The silicone is a little more pliable at that point. Of coarse the other option is a large tarp and a hammer or maybe a shooting range.

I thought about going the “fun” route, but this tank seems cursed.

 

[jeffopentax]

Got a used 110g (60” x 18” x 24”) which doesn’t have a raised frame, so the weight will be spread over the entire footprint. Since foam is a requirement (perhaps it always is), any recommendations on thickness/type?