Rivermuds Test Tank

[Rivermud]

Well here is the update that will make a few peoples day.

Walked into the shop this afternoon and wondered to myself why it was a bit nippy. Went over to check the heater and it was not working. Great. So I go relight the pilot and fire everything back up. It seems the place had a power outtage and somehow the pilot went out as well. This means that it got right freaking cold in there last night with no insulation. Not worrying much I went to inspect the tank. WOW Glassy... I put my hand down on it, heh it squeaks like a bathtub.. Move my hand and ... yech111 I take a moment to collect myself.. I start to check the tank over and it seems there are several places where the tank didn't cure. I can see where the part A and B seemed to have separated. I also see thousand of microbubbles. Now I'm no expert but I am familiar with epoxy, the micro bubbles wouldn't be where they are if the parts had separated.. and sure enough, where the microbubbles are everything has cured.

I decided to try to allow it to cure and bump the temp to about 80. Figuring that at worst the cure time would have just been slowed... wrong, it cured alright, within about an hour and a half even.. big problem though.. microbubbles everywhere sealed, not burst.

Well i nearly lost my temper...

At this point I know of atleast one person who is doing the happy dance in their chair.

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There, had to give him his few moments of joy. Now to burst their bubble and several thousand of mine. Thinking quickly I hit it with Xylene. This allowed the bubbles to burst and allowed the tank to finish curing..

So now I'm sitting on the stool . Wondering how much I'm going to trust this stuff. As I sit there I see the creation of new bubbles and I begin to look harder and can pick out where the parts seem to have separated. Kind of a golden sheen or streak. This threw me over the edge. I decided that something was wrong and I was going to get it taken care of. I know the tank will eventually cure out as I have found that part A will set with very little if any part B. So I let it keep curing (drying as I call it because it acts like freaking paint most f the time) and drove down to the Paint store, but not before I took a lot of pictures.

I showed the sales guy the pics and explained what was going on. He said that the low temp should have only slowed or stopped the curing until it got warmer. I agreed with that but I wanted to know why it separated like it did and why it had so many thousands of micro bubbles. Here's what I found out. This stuff like thin applications that cure before reapplication. Not like it states in the instructions, it's best to keep the coatings thin because for some reason this stuff hates thick coating, which is what you get if you do layers like I've been doing. The separation was something he could not explain except to say that maybe the colorant allowed the parts to keep from bonding. I asked what we could do in the mean time as I was Project committed.

Here is where it gets golden though. He said that he wanted to help make sure it worked out right and that he was sorry about the XIM separating. We both believe it was due to the thickness of he coats not allowing proper curing which let it eventually separate a bit. Then he said that he had fouled up coloring a batch of stuff that should do the trick nicely. I am now the proud owner of Macropoxy 646 2 part fast cure epoxy.

It's a high solids, high build, fast drying, polyamide epoxy.
Acceptable for immersion use for Saltwater and fresh water.

If anybody has experience with this stuff please give me a holler.

If I ever decide to try XIM again I will be sure to do no more than 2 cured coats at a time. I still have faith, just not in the directions provided.

Here are some pics of the failure.




I am going to wait for a day maybe two to make sure I can sand and paint on top of the old XIM stuff before I do anything. I will then be using the expensive stuff. I think this stuff is well over 100 per can.

 

[apayne]

Well i found this stuff in a different thread, looks great. I think I will try it when I do my 90 cube build.

http://www.sanitred.com/WaterFountain.htm

Hope your tank is still going forward.
Aaron

 

[Rivermud]

The tank is in a holding patterin until i get some time off work. Thanks though.. I would suggest reading some threads here and at cichlid-forum.com I recall some people having issues with it. ..

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47243&highlight=sanitread

 

[Rivermud]

Well I was able to work on the tank again today. We began by taking an orbital sander to the entire tank. Those bubbles were insane. I'm glad I decided not to trust the curing because when I sanded them the micro holes were no longer micro and they were deep.

I've come to the conclusion that it was my fault in the first place. I should have done single coats and let dry. Then do a quick rough up and coat again. I feel that it would have worked out fine. Maybe two coats then dry.... Either way it didn't end up being cost effective because I bought two batches at 40 bucks each, new brushes, sand paper, steel wool, containers.. Roughly 100 bucks. There are cheaper options or more proven options for around the same price mark.

In conclusion I would not use XIM again for the reasons stated above.

Now, back to the present. Wesanded the tank thoroughly then blew it out and wiped it down. This is where you find all of your flawed work. It was wavy and uneven to say the least. While we were doing that I set a batch of the new Macropoxy up and let it sweat. It's not too foul smelling and fairly easy to deal with. I wouldn't want it in the ouse bu shrug it's not too bad.

We painted it on with brushes at the beginning. WOW is this stuff thick compared to the waterlike stuff I was usig before. I didn't think we'd have enough to do the entire tank witht eh small batch I made. We decided to try to use a roller. This sped the job way way up and did a pretty decent job of coating the tank. We touched up the corners with teh brushes and were done in five minutes. I'd recommend to anyone using this product in the future, use a foam roller and good brushes hat don't lose their hairs. The heavy mat roller we used did the job fine enough but it left matting (or whatever word you wanna use for fibers) that we had to pick out by hand then touch up with a quick "flap" of a brush.

The tank is still curing and will not be ready for coat number 2 until around 11 or 12 tonight. They say that you do not want to put another coat on for 8 hours minimum. You do not need to sand for adhesion. I will make a large batch for round two. That should be plenty for this tank. Tomorrow I will install the glass and silicone the corners. Next week, WATER

 

[sterling_mcdaniel]

Its looking sweet.

 

[Rivermud]

Thanks,

Next coat goes on in the morning.

So, we need to decide what else we want to "test" or make.

I'm thinking home-made playdoh structures and/or backgrounds. The question would be how to clear seal it cheaply and easilly. I'd also like to make some DIY LED spotlights. I'm open to suggestions on anything really.. the idea behind making this smaller tank is to test new ideas and theory. There's not really much that would be new or truly innovative I suppose, I am hoping you all have ideas that e can hash out.

 

[Rivermud]

or not

 

[cvermeulen]

Someone had an idea some time ago about a structure underwater that could trap air, like an inverted bowl. The idea would be the ability to keep turtles or other amphibians in a tank full to the top with water, while still providing a small area for them to breathe and or bask. You could have an air stone dumping bubbles into the inverted bowl structure to keep it full of fresh air, and a small vent in the top of the structure, so air could turn over in there.

Might be a fun challenge to test out. AFAIK nobody ever tried doing it.

 

[basslover34]

Someone had an idea some time ago about a structure underwater that could trap air, like an inverted bowl. The idea would be the ability to keep turtles or other amphibians in a tank full to the top with water, while still providing a small area for them to breathe and or bask. You could have an air stone dumping bubbles into the inverted bowl structure to keep it full of fresh air, and a small vent in the top of the structure, so air could turn over in there.

Might be a fun challenge to test out. AFAIK nobody ever tried doing it.

I think that if you vented it then it would just fill with water but if you used a venturi you could control the level of the water in there with the bubbles from a airstone or Bubble disk... Interesting thought kind of like a see through cave

 

[Rivermud]

An inverted dome would work. If you put the one way vent at the lowest level that you want air in the dome it will only release the air until water hit it. With it's exit high that the water line it would not expel the water but would espel the air as it reached that point. However you may end up with a sort of air lift and slowly push water through the tube with the air. If that did happen, you could simply put the outlet in a place where we'd want to return excess water that came with it.

Just on quick thinking, if you made a nice acrylic box that sat over whatever free standing platform you wated to use, you could feesibly remove it to clean, then recharge with an air line and one way valves. Seems like a very interestng concept. I may try it but I would know know what amphibious critters to use seeing as I also want fish and know jack squat about amphibians. If people have suggestions, it seems like a very interesting idea to try. I don't see the purpose unless you want more water for fish so please give me an idea as to why we'd do it and we'll go from there.

You would also have to anchor the "dome" otherwise it would simply rise and release the air or flip releasing the air and sink. So the structure would also have to anchor the dome. The structure and dome would have to be removable, so the structure would have to have some weight, like a cinder block or something to keep from floating.

Either way I suppose there would have to be a reason for it.. the submerged for deeper water. It could be done though.