Has anyone removed the rim on an aquarium?

[Patrick M. Bodega Aquatics]

Hello everyone,

Hope everyone is doing well. Has anyone removed the black rim on an aquarium? I have seem many DIY videos of people removing the rim on an aquarium. Is this safe? It looks very risky. I would be doing this on a 35 gallon aquarium. Is this too large for the stress on the silicone? Does it work and look nice? Thanks for any responses.

[ange]

Usually the rim is bonded to the glass with silicone, you can use a razor blade to separate it from the glass and remove the rim without pulling too hard. Personally I only remove rims if they cause the aquarium to sit unevenly and need me to relevel it.

In the photo below, 2 of the corners were off the ground due to how uneven the rim was so I had to loosen the silicone outside of the aquarium using a razor and then the rest of the rim came away easily. After removing the rim, I used a level to determine if the unevenness was due to the rim or the glass. If all of the corners of your tank are in contact with the ground and there's no wobbling when you apply pressure on each corner it's likely you can skip that step when resealing their tank. Hope this helps.

[Patrick M. Bodega Aquatics]

Definitely helps. Thanks!