siliconing acrylic to lexan

[Jill & Brian]

I have an amiracle maxireef wet dry that I just added a skimmer to and converted to a sump. I would like to add two baffles to the sump in order to keep the water level constant on the skimmer side, and reduce bubbles. I have access to a bunch of lexan scrap for free, and I want to use that instead of acrylic. I also have a nice full tube of clear 100% acrylic. Being cheap, I want to silicone the lexan bapples into the acrylic sump.

My question is has anyone had experience siliconing lexan to acrylic (or even acrylic to acrylic) for baffles. I dont want them falling over in a week because the silicone dosen't stick well enough .

Thanks,
Brian

 

[Jill & Brian]

I may also want to silicone in some baffles instead of the ever popular bapples

 

[NateHanson]

(I assume you mean you have a tube of 100% silicone, not acrylic, right?)

I think that will work fine. Silicone doesn't really bond to plastics, but it should stick well enough to hold things in place since they won't have much pressure on them. I'd let them dry for a day or two.

 

[Jill & Brian]

it has been a rough day... actually the tube is 90% acrylic and 10% I cant type and think at the same time

Thanks,
Brian

 

[NateHanson]

huh?

 

[delta]

on my amiricle wet\dry i used pieces of acrylic cut very tight and pushed them into place works great no glue needed silicone will fall off over time anyway probably clog your pump too


acrylic 90% 10%??????? i am assuming that this is acrylic caulking? if so i wouldnt use it

 

[NateHanson]

Oh! acrylic latex caulk? You don't want to use that - it's water soluble!

You want to use clear 100% silicone caulk.

 

[Jill & Brian]

Sorry about all of that, I have 100 % GE clear silicone, not the kitchen and bath kind that has i believe arsenic added to it to prevent mildew. I am thinking I would be better off picking up a cheap 20 gal tank and setting it up with the baffles, then just switching the two out. That way I dont have to set up a temporary sump while the silicone dries, and I can size it a little better.

Thanks,
Brian

 

[NateHanson]

I agree. Get a new sump. It'll be much less of a headache than trying to work on the existing setup.

Nate