It's still reparable, but risky. I sure would not want the
liability of it leaking again,if I were to repair it. But
if it were my own tank, I would repair it. I'm a risk
taker :-) The crack would need to be cleaned out, and
acrylic solvent would be put in the crack to rebond the
acrylic. And the stand would have to be reinforced. And
since the crack is obviously in a place where you don't
see it, extra acrylic could be added to enforce it.

The other thing is that the tank was probably not made
strong enough to begin with.

But then, if you repaired it, there would not be much risk
if it were turned into a terrarium.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets



Betty wrote on 3/20/2006 5:51 PM:
Billy wrote:
Why do you say it is not repairable? A tank that large is most
certainly worth repairing unless a panel is cracked. Even then, the
repair would be cheaper than a replacement.



We had several people come out to view the tank and was quoted about
$10k to replace it.

The tank, which is only about 4 years old, was built into cabinetry and
did not have any sort of steel frame beneath it. With the weight of
all the rocks and water, it's believed that the wood compressed or
settled a bit and sadly, the tank is cracked. We thought it was just a
seam - but it's actually the left side and front cracked in the acrylic
itself.

Yes - this is the fault of the person who installed the tank - who is
now very much in debt and very out out business so we can't rely on him
to fix his error.

The owner does not want to spend that much money to fix and is looking
for some sort of comprimise.

I looked at terreriums and it seems like the tank would need to be
removed for things to be installed correctly? I'm not even an amatuer
- let alone an expert - so I have no idea if that's the case or not.

You guys seem like a pretty knowledgeable group - what would you do if
you had maybe a thousand or two to spend on this project to make it
look presentable - if not really cool looking?