Some of you may have seen this before but for some reason I never posted a thread about this tank restore on here, so I figured I'd do it now. Here's a tank I came across on Freecycle and how I went about restoring it. I did this project about 1 yr ago.


Before I cleaned it...







Here's the pics after cleaning the tank...







I used vinegar and plenty of razor blades to clean up the glass. Used a brillo pad and some elbow grease to clean up the stainless steel frame.

The tank is definitely old. The person before me said they used it for turtles.

When I got it I filled it up with water and it leaked in a few spots. I stripped out the old sealant (that black tar type stuff) and re-sealed the entire tank from the inside.

I also caulked the outside of the frame with black silicone to mimic the look of the old tank. I caulked the inside with black for the verticals and clear silicone around the base between the glass and the slate bottom. I let it cure for a couple of days and then water tested it.




Once it held water for over 24 hrs with no leaks I set it up.

I was trying to figure a way to get my glass top on the tank and finally figured it out. I got some 1/2" x 1/2" aluminum angle at the hardware store. Cut it to length 1 for each end of the tank. Siliconed it to the glass behind the top frame so you can't see it from outside the tank.





Some full tank shots...





As you can see it's just a bare bottom tank with a sponge filter. I'm using it for a growout tank for my severums.

Gheez! that's a lot of work! I would have given up and just got a newer tank for a few more bucks, but then again I use gravel so a slate bottom wouldn't mean much to me. Mark me impressed.

Thanks...I had fun doing that one. Not sure if I would do it again or not. Maybe if it was a bigger tank I would.

Well worth the work in my opinion for a old vintage tank! It looks great dawg...thanks for sharing and glad it is working out for you.

What size is it? I have a 10 gallon and a 2 1/2 like that. One side of the 2 1/2 broke during the move. I want to restore both.

Looks nice, Dawg. Good work. Do ya have the metal hood as well? I had the metal hood for the 10 gallon, but abandoned it before I accidently electrocuted myself, LOL. I think I still have it, but I'd need to do some serious restoration and modification to it to make it safe.

WYite

No hood for this one. The hoods are harder to find than the tanks IME. This one is a 20 long. You should definitely restore your tanks, WYite.

Wow! Good job dirtydawg10. The tank looks brand new.

Man that looks like it took awile to clean but the out come looks like it was well worth it!

Thanks, Everyone!! It was worth it to me to have something unique like this.

Wow. I love those old school tanks. I don't have any more of them sadly, but they just have this vintage awesomeness about them. That looks sweet.

I was considering looking into a cylinder tank but I should see if I can hunt a big one of those down for that flowerhorn.

saint_felony wrote:

Wow. I love those old school tanks. I don't have any more of them sadly, but they just have this vintage awesomeness about them. That looks sweet.

I was considering looking into a cylinder tank but I should see if I can hunt a big one of those down for that flowerhorn.

I even have the stand for the 10 gallon. It's pretty rusted up, though.

WYite

I've never actually seen the stands. I've only ever seen the tanks and the lids. You are right about those lids being a death trap though.

I've never seen the stands either. I have seen a few rusted out hoods but not many. Probably due to the amount of water and water vapor they are exposed to. They just don't seem to last and people throw them out.

I wonder how hard it would be to do up a tank like that in brass.

That sounds like it would look great. It can't be any harder than doing a stainless steel one. You thinking of doing it yourself or having one made up by a metal fab shop?