Melted Plastic?

Yellow17165161

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Hi,

After a few years of waiting and a lot of research later I decided to finally get a reef tank started.

I bought an AIO aquarium. Here’s where I may have messed up. So in the back part of the AIO there is a portion for the heater, I think the manufacturer added these 2 plastic “ridges” to limit the space forcing me to use their heater. Not sure. I had the bright idea to use a hot knife to cut the ridges out to use my own heater. It worked, but obviously the plastic released a lot of smoke. Plus one of the melted off ridges fell to the bottom, and it’s impossible to remove until it floats up when I add water.

There was absolutely nothing in the tank at the time, fresh out of the box. I rinsed the melted part out with rodi water. But now I wonder whether that part will end up leaching into the water eventually. Plus I still have to fish out the little ridge.

I have sand on the bottom, about to scape and was thinking of filling the tank, then doing two 50% water changes in the next two days to get rid of any potential residue. Would this be necessary?
 
If you rinsed out the tank well you should be fine, the spot where you melted the plastic will not leach anything further into tank.

BTW.. Welcome to R2R!!
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hi welcome to the reef going to love it here!!
lots of fun/info/fun/help/fun....
pics!!!..we all love pics.. :)
yep no problem there,happy reefing
 
Thank you very much guys! I can finally add the water today. Been preparing for 2 weeks just to add water, my family think I’m crazy haha. I’ve read that some people use a heater in their saltwater mix before adding it in, is that only if your adding it to an existing tanks water right? I’m using a 5 gallon bucket for now since stores aren’t open to pick up the big brute container, should I just add the recommended amount of salt to the bucket and mix with a powerhead? Or is mixing by hand fine?
 
Only need a heater when you're adding to a tank containing livestock. Keep in mind though, temperature can also change what some salinity meters read, so unless you know your exact salt to water ratio, should heat it to fine tune the measurements.

Most will say you should mix your salt with a powerhead, and leave it running for 24 hours to balance the Ph and whatnot, and that is a good practice. However there is nothing wrong with hand mixing water, especially when filling an empty tank. I hand mix water, especially when I need it on short notice all the time.
 
Welcome to R2R!

FWIW - the plastic bit that fell won't float. If your tank is still dry, just wrap some duct tape inside out (so the sticky is on the outside) around whatever you have that is long enough to get to the offending piece and pluck it right on out of there
 

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