Dang it, a leaker...

[Bushkill]

I'm glad to see you didn't lose him. I don't take many trips away from home, and stories like this are the main reason. My wife already thinks I'm nuts so I wouldn't dare divulge that.

I was mulling over revamping another part of the fish room and buying new $1/G tanks in the process. After reading this and looking at the bowing in the 29G's I already have, I think I'll hold out for $1/G sales at Pet Supplies Plus. I'm not sure Aqueons are that much better made, but they can't be worse.

I came up with a plan for taking the bow out of the 29G's: I'm going to crazy glue a strip of thicker acrylic across the middle of them. I usually do 50% on them, but I'll take them down to 25% remaining, crazy glue the strip in place and clamp it. Kind of a DIY center brace for a cheaply made 29G. I have 4 of them so I have to work with them. If it was 1, I would've torn it down to use for glass covers by now.

Most of a 10G with a recuperating discus is tough enough to deal with, imagine a bigger tank full of fish? I'm thrilled you lucked out here.

[PaulineMi]

Thanks and I understand where you're coming from. I had an old 90 gallon full of adult male African cichlids. It was a beautiful display tank....until I noticed wet carpeting minutes before we were set to head out for the day. It's  amazing how fast a tank can be torn down and fish moved!  Adrenaline. And it's really annoying how well plecos can hide when we're trying to save lives.

Now I'm hoping my luck doesn't run out. I can't understand how a vertical crack can occur down the entire front of a small tank. Perhaps there was a small crack under the rim....?

[Bushkill]

Thanks and I understand where you're coming from. I had an old 90 gallon full of adult male African cichlids. It was a beautiful display tank....until I noticed wet carpeting minutes before we were set to head out for the day. It's  amazing how fast a tank can be torn down and fish moved!  Adrenaline. And it's really annoying how well plecos can hide when we're trying to save lives.

Now I'm hoping my luck doesn't run out. I can't understand how a vertical crack can occur down the entire front of a small tank. Perhaps there was a small crack under the rim....?

Glass has some of the weirdest working properties. Your theory on a crack or chip under the rim isn't far-fetched by any means. It only takes a tiny chip on any edge and just the right pressure, and........

I've taken rims off tanks and some are just un-seamed (nice sharp, unpolished) and some that are down-right ragged. So it isn't just the glass thickness that worth considering, but the overall workmanship.

[Mugwump]

I worked for this place back when I was going to school in Pasadena. I was drafted into to Army while working there. It was, and is still, one of the most interesting things that I have ever done. I got to use my school chemistry when using electrolysis to clean micro filaments, and etching the deuterium and hydrogen lamps. I was trained to run the furnaces for annealing both the glass and metals used...they used glass spinning on lathes to bond glass, in layers, on metals....fascinating stuff for a young lad like myself.... ...it was a small shop then and we all got a chance to watch each new adventure in custom lab equipment evolve.....

http://www.qbinstruments.com/

[PaulineMi]

I had to concentrate reading your post and there were "big words" on the "about us" page of the site. I could see where you would enjoy that job. Then I went to the "items for sale" and got a real surprise when I saw what they were. 

[Mugwump]

I had to concentrate reading your post and there were "big words" on the "about us" page of the site. I could see where you would enjoy that job. Then I went to the "items for sale" and got a real surprise when I saw what they were. 

On the front page was this pic...these lamps were shown threw a solution of minerals/chemicals and the color spectrum graduated out on a corresponding chart reflecting their identities/properties...either a hydrogen or deuterium lamp may be used depending on the applicable tests being done....the lamps have a micro-thin water jacket for cooling, as the get very hot. I helped test these when I worked there.

[PaulineMi]

What were those lamps used for?

[Mugwump]

What were those lamps used for?

Deuterium Lamp's continuous spectrum is useful as both a reference in UV radiometric work and to generate a signal in various photometric devices.




Emission spectrum of an ultraviolet deuterium arc lamp showing characteristic hydrogen Balmer lines (sharp peaks at 486 nm and 656 nm labeled Dβ and Dα from left to right respectively), continuum emission in the ~160-400 nm region and Fulcher band emission between around 560 to 640 nm. The emission spectrum of deuterium differs slightly from that of protium due to the influence of hyperfine interactions, though these effects alter the wavelength of the lines by mere fractions of a nanometer and are too fine to be discerned by the spectrometer used here. Deuterium is used rather than hydrogen because of its greater intensity of UV emission in the molecular band.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deuterium_arc_lamp

[PaulineMi]

Well... ...that's  a bit more than the hummingbird feeders they sell. 

[Mugwump]

Well... ...that's  a bit more than the hummingbird feeders they sell. 

Those are likely 'spare change' makers from a by product from the glass blown fixtures..??...I know that we never had those back when I was around...LOL....of course, that was 50 years ago...I was around 19 yrs old at the time that I started...  ....

[PaulineMi]

Lol.....50 years ago....I had a job as a car hop at an A&W root beer stand.