OK in December of 2012 my 75 gallon tank sprung a leak at about 3 am i woke up to the sound of of leaking water to my surprise i had to clean up 45 gallons of water on the floor after three hours latter i washed up and went to do some 10 hours of volunteer work for the salvation army after all the volunteer work was over i drained the rest of the water as was instructed bye ron urry i dried the entire tank then i started to strip all the caulking on the inside of the tank only i cleaned the caulking out from the tank i then got some very fine steel wool and took it to all the edges front sides bottom and back then ron came over and helped me the rest of the way as i watched ron marked all the edges 3/4 of an inch with a black felt tip marker on the out side of the tank we then vacumed the entire tank of any old caulking or tape
he then taped the entire tank with masking tape at the marked points from side to side and top to bottom then ron started to caulk the entire tank with with aquarium safe caulking not the normal caulking after the caulking was done we removed the tape right away after 24-48 hours i was able to put the water back in but i waited for 96 hours just to be safe i added 12 inches at a time and waited 2-3 hours at a time after the tank is 3/4 full you can add all your decorations and plants to the tank at this time i top up the rest of the tank with waterat this time you can add the filter pump to the tank and turn it on what i normally do is use some old filter media from an old tank what this does is cycle the tank within 48 hours at this point i add a few fish to the tank you do not want to add to many at once as the amonia from the fish can ruin the cycle of the water a few fish every 2 weeks should be good enough my thanks to ron urry for his help in this huge task
he then taped the entire tank with masking tape at the marked points from side to side and top to bottom then ron started to caulk the entire tank with with aquarium safe caulking not the normal caulking after the caulking was done we removed the tape right away after 24-48 hours i was able to put the water back in but i waited for 96 hours just to be safe i added 12 inches at a time and waited 2-3 hours at a time after the tank is 3/4 full you can add all your decorations and plants to the tank at this time i top up the rest of the tank with waterat this time you can add the filter pump to the tank and turn it on what i normally do is use some old filter media from an old tank what this does is cycle the tank within 48 hours at this point i add a few fish to the tank you do not want to add to many at once as the amonia from the fish can ruin the cycle of the water a few fish every 2 weeks should be good enough my thanks to ron urry for his help in this huge task
