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fridmani1

Repairing Leaking Sump

Rating: 23 votes, 5.00 average.
I mixed up around 180G of sea water and started to fill my tank and sump. Once I had the whole system filled and running I noticed that there was water next to my sump. The next morning a noticed a little more water and I started to worry. Luckily when I had my tank built I had them put an acrylic liner along the entire length of the tank. That way if there is a leak in the system it will save the floor. The liner has a 5 inch edge around it creating a bowl. This has saved my many times over the years and I wouldn't have a tank without it. I'm surprised to not see more tanks with a liner.

I knew that the sump didn't leak before I took it out from under the tank. I first thing I though of was there was a leak in a bulkhead somewhere. In checking all the connection everything looked great.

So I gave Mark a call and he recommended to pull the sump out of the stand and place it on news paper and fill one section at a time until I find the leak. This is what I did...

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First section filled and no sign of a leak.

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Next I filled the bubble trap and I found the leak.

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Since the leak was in the bubble trap there was no way to fix this from the inside. So my only choice was to fix from the outside. I contacted Marc again and he indicated that there was no problem to fix the leak on the outside.

So I purchased some of the Weld-on #16 and created a thin strip of acrylic to patch the area with the leak. This was my first time gluing acrylic so I was a little nervous about it.

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Now I need to glue the strip of acrylic to the area with the leak. It's not a perfect patch but it should hold.

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I let it dry for 24 hours and then I filled up the sump on paper to see if I have repaired all the leaks.

Success - this is after sitting on the paper for a couple of hours.

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My thanks to Marc for his help.
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Comments

  1. melev's Avatar
    I'm glad I was able to help. Nice job.
  2. Midnight's Avatar
    Couldn't have just used the weld-on 16 by itself? Not sure of why it wouldn't have closed up the existing acrylic with just the solvent.
  3. melev's Avatar
    #1 because it never would wick into the joint completely, and #2 because you can't get access from within the bubble trap. It's far better to patch over an area like this, creating an additional barrier water can't get past.