Quote Originally Posted by privet01 View Post
Not many adhesives of any sort stick to their dried or cured brethren. That's why you should always clean them off, or at least give the next best thing which is a good cleaning and/or roughing up.

In the case of silicone adhesive, I'd just make sure it's clean. Maybe wipe it with some alcohol. Possibly rubbing a little bit of the new silicone on the old prior to laying your bead of silicone will help ensure a good bond and that your bead is not just laying on top the old.

But......... I've never liked the idea of dividers for separating water and dry... if that's what you are using it for.
It is likely to eventually leak from what I've read. And when it does, you will have a mess on what should have been your dry side. Which will require a complete redo. It also prevents any live plants on the dry side from helping to maintain your water quality. Plants can remove the ammonia and some other "bad" stuff if their roots are allowed to get down to the water.
OK would it help if I scored the silicon before rubbing a little on it before doing the bead?

I'm trying to prevent failure of the barrier by ensuring a good bond of the silicon. I have read of many failing, and many not failing. If it'll help to put something between the bits of silicon I'm willing to. [emoji3]

My "dry" side will still have its drainage layer. It will likely be more damp on that side, because of splashing and humidity increase from the water section, than a viv with no water section. I do expect I may need to drain excess water off more regularly.
But with a burrowing frog it just seems like the best way to go. I want it to have a pool of water to swim in, and it needs deep enough soil to burrow. So if I used the drainage layer for the pond supply, it'd have to be a high drainage layer to accommodate the water level I'd like, then the height of soil and trying to stop that from tipping into the water! And then jumping room on top of the soil? It'd be running out of room! So this to me seems like the best way to go. If I had a tank that was 3ft high it might work differently but then soil would still keep tipping into the water from what I can imagine.

I hope I've understood you about the plants. I'm still expecting that my plants will assist with processing wastes on the 'dry' side. I will also have plants in the water section, and I'm thinking of buying a couple of nice ones for that. [emoji3]
In my couple of 'natural' aquariums I have river/pond plants, I've not bought water plants before.

Thanks privet01 for the reply!



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