Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok after a week of my caiman enclosure being up and running I discovered there must be a small leak in the plexiglass divider between the aquatic part holding roughly 50 gallons of water at the moment and the land portion the leak isnt to bad as there is only about an inch of water showing and most of that height is due to it being forced up around the fake plant decorators foam used as space filler at the bottom. I need help is there either a sealant that can be applied without the water portion being empty, or a solution like aplying a material to the bottom or some along those means any help would be greatly appreciated. The external structure is holding fine. Thanks

There are epoxy putty products which will cure even when wet. If the leak is small, you can putty the dry side of the divider.

Still, I think the wisest approach here is to empty the tank and seal the water side of the divider, since the water pressure pushing on the cured sealant (like aquarium silicon or epoxy putty) only helps seal the seams even better.
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Mark

ok Im having a hell of a time. I re-did the seals all the way around filled it back with water. only to discover there is still a leak. Any ideas for like a spray that I can apply to make it water tight? I dropped a bunch of cash on aquarium sealant and I would rather not have to undo it again and re apply it not to mention the odd angle and difficulty sealing the bottom part which appears to not have the leak. It seems to be on the sides of the partition

Just a thought here, but maybe you could use the plumbers putty, then once that is area is dry, apply something over it? I was thinking greatstuff foam. Guys that build dart frog tanks use it all the time inside their vivariums, so it is completely safe. Once it's dry you can coat it with black silicone, and then while the silicone is still tacky cover with co-co fiber (It's the stuff that comes as a compressed brick and you expand in hot water). This last step wouldn't do much structurally, just simply hide the ugly yellow foam.

That said, I don't know if this is in a location where your lil' guy would have access to it. I hear they have sharp claws, and this might shred the silicone/coco fiber, thus leaving greatstuff foam showing.

If you need a visual of the method I'm talking about (I know I'm a visual person), google dart frog vivariums. The process is very well documented on several forums. Email me and I'll send you the link to a specific forum.

This might not work, someone else might chime in here, but seems like a good route to me.

~Johnny

At this point visual looks is a distant care, obviously Id prefer if it looked nice and neat but Im sick of draining 50 gallons of water by hand and removing prob 20 qts of cyprus mulch. plumbers putty might work the problem is I know not much stick to the aquarium silcone. Also the tank is a beast to move and in my room which isnt the greatest for ventilation so I would much prefer that its a lower odor/toxins process.