How to remove the rims?

a heat gun might loosen the glue

I haven't had any luck removing a rim in one piece. It has been hard enough just removing it at all. The rims I have looked at carefully and/or removed have been cemented in place along the outside vertical face and on the top of the glass. When I applied any force at all little chips of glass would come off with the rim, and this was after I cut the corners and planed down the top outside corner to remove almost all of the corner. I know people do remove the rim and replace it with a new one, but I suspect most of them destroy the rim as they remove it.

You may not have cut the glue properly. Use a single edge razor blade, and cut between the glass and the glue to separate the glass from the glue. Do this on both outside and inside. When the frame is ready you will feel it start to give. If it does not feel that way, cut between the glass and the glue again.

If the frame breaks, I have two sources for you. One is glasscages.com, then find and pick "Tank Frames" along the left side.

The other is cciaquarium.com http://cciaquarium.com/, then pick "Pricelist", or click link here http://cciaquarium.com/price.html. The prices you see are wholesale, but don't worry, the retail price is not much higher. Look on list for "One Piece Frame", then your size. You might be 30x12 or 36x12, or 48x12 ?

Thanks for those links! I hope I won't have to use them but they'll come in handy if something goes wrong. I'm making sure but slow process. I'm cutting along between the glass and the glue a million times but it doesn't always break the seal. I've had good luck with scraping out pieces of silicone and picking it out with needle nose pliers and hemostats. I think a heat gun would likely warp the trim :/

Since they use silicone to attach the rim, a heat gun wouldn't be much help anyway.
Slow steady force works. Once you get one edge up, use piece of wood to wedge the rest off.
Be sure to not lift off the edge at too big of angle as you get it off-- you will take the edge of the glass with it.

I derimmed a tank recently and much of the silicone was on the top of the glass panes. It seems like it would be impossible to remove the rim and keep it intact as you cannot cut under the rim horizontally.

Unless you're supa man


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