My Algae Scrubber blew-up

[Windy]

I had pulled my waterfall type scrubber out of the cabinet to clean it and scrape the screen. I sprayed the acrylic scrubber with water from a sink. It was quite hot. All of a sudden. it sounded like a gun shot. The scrubber had split down one seam.


The original scrubber was made of old acrylic, I had purchased in 1998. I am not sure if that made it more susceptible to cracking or if any acrylic would do the same thing. Anyway, I had to replace it so this time I went with glass.





Its curing right now, and I will water test it Monday.

 

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I can imagine the bang! Looking at the pic of the split seam, it looks like rough-sawn acrylic on the bonded edge, yes? It you combine this with bonding using just capillary action and not the pins method, this can result in pretty weak overall joint strength. The acrylic being 10+ years old probably didn't help, but I don't know if it would have decreased joint strength. Are you sure it was acrylic and not Lexan or another polycarbonate?

Glass one looks nice. I've heard a few glass tank manufacturers say wait 2 weeks for silicone to cure when using it on a reef system tho. 48-72 hours to water test (structural strength). I usually wait until I can't smell the acetic acid smell anymore, which is usually close to 2 weeks.