Cracks? Should I be worried?

[time4mercy]

I'm tearing down my 5 gal Mini-Bow. . . once I got almost all the gravel out, I noticed that the front corners look like they might be failing.

The tank is currently sitting on my kitchen counter full of water with paper towel underneath it. I'm waiting to see if it's leaking.

Is this normal wear on an acrylic mini-tank, or a harbinger of doom? I don't particularly want to buy a new tank, but that's preferable to getting this one set up again and having it leak/fail soon after.

Here's the best I could do for pics. What say you all?

[fuzzysocks]

I say chuck it. Acrylic is a fairly brittle material, and while the cracks may be stable for now under the current reasonably static loading conditions, you don't want to see what can happen to it and your floor when you put it under impact loading (such as bumping the tank). The pictures aren't detailed enough for me to be able to give you more information, but if you were able to get a more in focus picture I might be able to help more...I'm having a bit of a difficult time figure out how many cracks there are, and where they terminate.

If you lived closer to Vancouver I'd offer to inspect the tank for you--there's a surprising amount that can be learned from looking at a crack!

[Diztrbd1]

I think thin acrylic does tend to do that over time. Could probably smear some sealant over those areas as a safe guard, if the cracks aren't leaking. If they are leaking I'd probably just chuck it as previously suggested

[time4mercy]

Well, the corners aren't leaking, but there is a leak near the top. I think the acrylic might just be too old and brittle to take being moved around unless the tank is totally empty (I was moving it around to scoop the old gravel out). IIRC, my last mini-bow cracked during teardown, and it was around the same age (5-6 years). Maybe they just aren't meant to last very long.

That's my last mini-bow/small acrylic tank. I'll be picking up a (GLASS!) 5 gal somewhere in the next few days. If anyone's seen a good deal, let me know.

Thanks for the advice.

[gklaw]

I would say it is "probably" ok - although the pci shows possibly other signs of aging at the joint. 5 gallon of water leaking is not that huge a deal anyway. I had 75 gallon lost from my 150g coming back after a long weekend. It is doubtful you will see a catastrophic burst or anything of that nature with a 5g.

If you bring it over, I can put some acrylic solvent in the joint - just to make you feel better

I also have a 5gallon acrylic kit sitting here for $20 if you want it. My sister bought that new last year. I just upgraded her to an Eclipse 12g.