Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Funny enough, the BLACK ibc's are usually the ones used for hard core chems, but to my knowledge they are somewhat protected from the UV due to the carbon black added to give them the colour!

Okay, we've had the warning from F&F about the limited lifespan of ibc's, but is there anyway to repair them after they have cracked from the sun? I finally got around to taking our freebie out of it's cage yesterday to inspect it properly and found that it doesn't take very much pressure at all to cause crazing in the plastic.
Is this repairable? Cheaply of course. Or should I be looking for another one?

You can make some patches out of some similar material and some solvent glue. I asume they are polycarbonate so it shouldn't be two hard. Just have a patch on the inside and outside of the tank with liberal ammounts of glue... Maybe use that black packing plastic (like glad wrap) and do a few laps around the outside of the tank...

Tim, they're high density polyethelyne.

The UV, does something to the polymer links.

i'd probably look for another one. as if one section has cracked then it obviously had enough UV to weaken it.

HDPE... bugger. Solvents are pretty nasty for these plastics... But yeah, whats to say it won't crack somewhere else. A special glue/paint would probably cost more than the IBC itself...

you would end up with patch's holding patch's and be wasting your time

Had two more in this week get a nother one preferibly from a company that uses them and paint it where it gets the sun

thanks everyone, that's pretty much the conclusion we came to. The ibc didn't cost us anything, so patching it will take money that could more usefully be spent elsewhere