Epoxy Paint HELP

[Neil1]

I am currently constructing a 200G plywood reef tank and need advice on the type of Epoxy Paint to use. Some web sites I have visited say to use Marine Paint, Pool Paint, etc. while others stress to use a paint that is drinking water safe.

Doeas anyone have any positive or negative experiences that they could share with me on using 2 part epoxy that is not listed as drinking water safe?

 

[MLVA123]

I am currently constructing a 200G plywood reef tank and need advice on the type of Epoxy Paint to use.

The plywood tank is NOT recommended! Plus it would be really hard to see your livestock! :wink:

 

[Neil1]

I will have a glass front

 

[cdeakle]

bad idea....bad idea......

 

[forestal]

I have a plywood tank and it works just fine (although for freshwater). I used epoxy paint from these folks (Aquatic Eco systems). 4-5 coats



http://www.aquaticeco.com/aquatic1v...&iteminfo4=0&eflag=0&curitempos=8&numitems=11

Good luck with the tank.

 

[Reefer2b]

Plywood tanks are fine. Built one myself...still running fine. I read the same stuff you obviously have about using a pool, marine, or food safe epoxy. I digested all the info and then said to heck with it and just used a black two part epoxy I found at home depot. Primary purpose of my tank was as a proof of concept, so I rolled the dice...sounded like a neat idea. Learned a lot.

Whatever you choose, my advice is to put lots of coats on and make sure the epoxy is thick. I made the mistake of putting an urchin in mine....once the walls were all covered with coralline he started chowing down and actually scrapped through the epoxy in a few spots and exposed some wood. He was quickly moved, tank partially drained, spots covered with some silicone, everything's fine. It's a softy tank...xenia, shrooms, zoos, colt, ricordia, two clowns...actually there's some montipora in there too. All fine.

To all the naysayers....why are you down on plywood? There's plenty of horror stories of glass and acrylic tanks letting go, rios failing and wiping out a tank, etc....nothing's totally fail safe in this hobby....

 

[fishguru]

I too love all the criticismabout the plywood tanks. There have been numerous people, on several different boards who make a plywood tank, glass front, who have a very successful tank, as long as it is well planned out. the horror stories come from those, who dont listen to those who have not succeeded. I built a 450 gallon Plywood tank for less 1/3 of a conventional glass tank. So for all of you who havent ever seen or made one, please keep your "it wont work" comments to yourself-Brent

 

[Mogo]

I have seen a couple of plywood tanks and they are awesome. I just about built one a couple years ago but couldn't find the time.

 

[doc_slick]

I have been building combination tanks for years for commercial and residential use. So here is some advice. Combination tanks make up about 75% of all wall installation tanks over 200 gallons in use today. They are not the easiest to build, but they aren't really hard either. As far as the epxoy coating goes, i have seen success with Epxoy coatings from Home Depot as well as with the more expensive potabale water coatings such as TankClad HS and others. The dispute about the different kinds of coatings come in to play , if you didn't already know, because of the VOC content ( Volitile Organic Compound) that could possibly leech into tank water. Here is a newsflash ALL EPOXY COATINGS CONTAIN VOC's. The reason why these coatings are listed for potable water is because they have shown not to lose their VOC's into the tanked water in concentrations considered to be above nominal. Also the coatings have shown not to react with or react very minimally with additives in this water such as chlorine, flourine, bacteriostatic agents and the like. This standard includes this in it's criteria to certify the epoxy for use in potable water systems. As a matter of practice I use certified epoxy coatings for all tanks that I build for sale, however, I have used uncertified epoxy coatings in my personal tanks and have found no abnormal effects in these tanks. In my poinion , if you have the extra money, use the certified coatings, but if you are on a budget the lowVOC epoxy coatings for concrete work just as well. If i see any changes in my tanks that are coated with the HomeDepot type of epoxy I will be sure to report back and relay this.

 

[DonJasper]

When you say:

but if you are on a budget the low VOC epoxy coatings for concrete work just as well.

Do you mean the garage floor paint like "Epoxy Shield"? I figured epoxy is epoxy, and was thinking about using it. But I was concerned that it might be porus or something, because well . . . all epoxies might not be created equal.

 

[Fl_Seagull]

When I went looking for epoxy paint I was concerned about garage paint. I was not sure the pigment was safe. I end up buying pool paint; Suncast white epoxy for concrete pools. It was $80 retail ($48 wholesale) for 2gal kit. Talk to your local pool supply company.

Talking to a friend who edits a composite industry trade journal; he said that most companies don't want the expense of certification. When he needed to use a product that was not certified, he simple had a lab verify the epoxy was safe. Since the basic chemistry is the same he had never had an epoxy fail the lab tests.

He warned against using 2-part Urathane. Beside being very toxic to the painter (thought safe once cured); It will blister and fail from long-term water soak.

 

[cdeakle]

Fishguru,

Keeping comments to ourselfs defeats the purpose of a "message board"

So please keep your negative comments to yourself.