Is it easy to take apart and re- silicone an aquarium?

[Ryan Young]

Hi,
I have an aquarium measuring roughly 100cm x 40cm x 60cm which has a centre brace also.
My question is, because it has horrible and intrusive black silicone lining it, is it fairly straight forward to take apart and re- silicone the tank with clear silicone?
Also, I have heard mean people remove their centre brace however as the manufacturer clearly thought it was important could I remove this or should this stay?

Thanks, Ryan

 

[Greenfinger2]

Hi Ryan, contact Zozo--- Marcel--he has built his own tank

http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/2nd-the-stove.38872/

 

[mort]

I've built quite a few tanks and its pretty easy to silicone them up but takes some practice to get the seams looking good. If you strip it which should be reasonably easy (just done one myself last week), you need to get rid of every trace of old silicon which is very laborious, as this will become a weakness in the new joint. Silicon doesn't stick to silicon very well.
As for the brace, you really need to keep it or replace it. If the tank is something like the juwel range then I have seen many times where they have bowed out because they lose a lot of strength. In general where you want to do away with bracing you up the thickness of the glass but its much cheaper to add a brace and go thinner.