overflow broke loose :(

[DougSupreme]

Luckily, the way I have my drains piped, I can only lose about 2" if the power should cut out. Still, I 'm not really comfortable in my current situation.

I have a corner overflow, made of acrylic, siliconed to the back of my tank. My siliconing skills must be lacking because this is the second "overflow box" to give way on me. It may not be a terrible thing since my LR is covered with algae, I will be forced to remove all the rock to fix the overflow anyway. I can take the time to give them a good scrubbing. My problem is, I really don't want this to happen again, but I have a hard time getting a good "acrylic to glass" bond with the silicone. Since my overflow is "L" shaped I might need to silicone a piece of acrylic flat against the side of the tank opposite the short side of my overflow. Hopefully, this will keep it from breaking loose.

Any other ideas? Tips and tricks? I'm open to all suggestions.

[RV8tor]

Sorry to hear about the overflow. Acrylic doen't like to stick to silicone. if it did you would never get that plastic cap off the tube it you used it a second time. I would recommend going to the glass store and getting two pieces 3/16 or 1/4 in thick glass and cut to length and then cut your top teeth (to prevent critters from getting in your overflow) with a dremmel and then silicone the two pieces in an L shape while gluing it to your tank. I think it would work better glass to glass. Hope this helps.

[matt the fiddler]

i second that.. acrylic don't bond to glass... if you do glass to glass, you will be fine..

[tschopp]

I third that. I would skip the glass teeth and just use eggcrate or plastic mesh to keep the critters out. Have the glass "seamed" by the glass shop. This takes off the sharp edge from the glass.

[RV8tor]

Ooh, good point tschopp, I didn't think of using eggcrate. Sounds a lot easier than cutting teeth.