cracking center brace

[bbreaux1]

anyone have a solution besides a new tank for a center brace that is cracking? its a standard size 55 gallon about 2 1/2 years old. its not cracked all the way through yet but its close i will try getting a picture later on. the only thing i have sitting on the rim is a amiracle overflow,prizm skimmer and my hood which is made out of 3/8 of a sheet of halfinch oak with 4vho lights. is it just too much weight on the top frame from all this. thanks for any suggestions

 

[squidd]

You could silicone in a piece of 3/8" glass about 4" wide, front to back below the offending brace...
That would keep the front/back from bowing and help support weight on the plastic brace...

 

[crusinlow]

Caution to you, one of my buddies had that happen to his 150 and we repaired it with a u shaped brace that you could not see under the canopy.Bad thing ,less than 2 month later he went outside and when he got back in his tank sprung a leak,a biggggggggg leak out the side .Needless to say he quit the hobby. But I got some good stuff after that.Silicone may becoming unatatched better look it over real good and have back up containers.Good luck to you!

 

[dockery07]

We had the exact same thing happen on a 55. We were lucky in that it was within the first year, and got the tank replaced for Free. the new one came with a substancially thicker center brace, but still plastic. I would look at adding 2 glass braces on each side, and a pipe clamp to hold it together until it's good and solid.
One more thing. On OUR particular situation, the heat of the lights weakend the brace that caused OUR problem. Not saying it was the same for you, but just a thought you might look into.
You might see if you can find a thermometer (probably needs to go pretty high temp), to see if that could be the cause.
Good Luck.

 

[birdy]

There was a thread about replacing the center brace on the reef forum a few days ago. You can replace it with acrylic, you will want to clamp the tank together (vise grips make these huge clamps) then you can remove the brace epoxy the acrylic piece in then you will need to drill holes and put nylon screws in the sides.
I did this without the nylon screws and it didn't work, so good luck. Here is the link to the thread.
https://forums.saltwaterfish.com/t/117664/center-brace

 

[bbreaux1]

dont think ill want to do that since its a glass tank. im thinking i might get two thick pieces of acrylic and epoxy them to top and bottom of the center brace that is there and put a bold through it on each end. hopefully that will hold if not guess ill be upgrading my tank

 

[lions n nd]

contact the maker of the tank you can order a new top piece
you will have to partially drain your tank and cut off the old frame and resilicone the new one on takes a few hours for that size
remember to use aquarium silicone though

 

[eg_hatch]

Aw man, get it done as soon as you can, My 150's center brace came off, and the front of the tank literally blew out the next day.. :nope:

 

[frogz]

i had the same thing happen on my 55 it was cracked half way accross the brace i drilled a small hole at the end of the crack
and that stopped the crack from moving any more never had any problems after that i now have a 72 gallon , i gave my 55 away and it is still goin till this day no problems with the brace.
and its been 3 years since i drilled the crack on the brace