sjpresley Posted March 16, 2003 Share Posted March 16, 2003 I am recovering from the trauma, now...I think I can speak. Sadly, I now have first had experience rescueing a tank with broken glass. At least I can say it was ALL my fault. I was replacing the hood last friday while in a hurry and hit the corner of it on the plastic framing of the tank. I heard a crack, said, "Oh ######." and turned on the lights in the room. I had a crack going from the top of the side glass diagonally to the front corner...and water was dripping out. I grabbed some aquarium sealant and a piece of plexiglass. I smeared sealant all over the side and slapped on the glass. Then to my horror, another crack started at the top-center and went straight down all the way to the bottom. More sealant (a dozen times over), a fan, and half an hour re-distributing sealant when a little leak developed and the tide was stemmed. Over all I lost about a cup and half of water. I dried the place up and waited. Sure enough, behind the framing, where I couldn't get and sealant, there was a slow leak. About an ounce/hour. So I bought a new tank, still a 10G, and went to work. I didn't throw anything away, put corals and inverts in a plastic box, LR in another, and the fish in a bucket with some LR. I cut tank water with new 50/50 in each container. Moved the substrate, detritus and all to the new tank. Added circulation/aeration and heat where I could, put a portable heater in my office and set it to 80. Left everything over night for the sediments to settle. Rebuilt the reef the next day, added the corals and inverts. Waited 6 hrs and acclimated the fish. I kept testing for NH4 and found a max of .5 ppm (I treated with Seachem Prime), and never saw anymore NH4 develope. As far as I can tell, I lost one Astrea. Here is a pic of the tank right before I tore into it. Notice the plexiglass and sealant on the left...I didn't take a picture of the cracks...too disturbing. Link to comment
sjpresley Posted March 16, 2003 Author Share Posted March 16, 2003 funny...most of them opened right up laying on their sides in the sun Link to comment
sjpresley Posted March 16, 2003 Author Share Posted March 16, 2003 kept aerated to prevent bacterial death Link to comment
sjpresley Posted March 16, 2003 Author Share Posted March 16, 2003 just a bit cloudy.... Link to comment
sjpresley Posted March 16, 2003 Author Share Posted March 16, 2003 I really miss the coraline on the glass and the Briareum growing up the back glass....oh, well, it'll grow back in time. Link to comment
sjpresley Posted March 16, 2003 Author Share Posted March 16, 2003 By the way, I had been working on some photo albums of the tank. They are now posted in the members tanks area...sorry about all the snail pics in the mollusc album, but hey, when you've got diversity, a nice digital camera, and your a dork what do you leave out? Link to comment
Christopher Marks Posted March 16, 2003 Share Posted March 16, 2003 Well the new tank does look good still. I'd say you handled the situation very well. Link to comment
Raise Posted March 16, 2003 Share Posted March 16, 2003 Looking good, please list your complete setup Link to comment
sjpresley Posted March 16, 2003 Author Share Posted March 16, 2003 Well....let see: Prizm--run 24/7 Duetto filter w/o sponge, but with carbon 404 mini-jet Lame heater--set at 82 4, 13W PC combos (10K/actinic) Unfortunately I used crushed coral, didn't know any better at the time, and I have a bunch of LR, but I have not idea how much. And......I run an airstone in a back corner as security should the prism loose suction (I built a bracket to keep it from intruding in the water column, so it sometimes looses it every couple days or so) so that I don't have to worry about O2 levels and surface agitation. With glass top salt creep is minimal, having run for 8 days now, there is zero salt creep right now. I used to dose a lot of things, but have started only dosing calcium. I regularly use seachem buffer, to help keep my kH up. I feed both microvert and phytoplex once/twice week and a mixture of krill, blood worms, brine shrimp, and daphnia daily during the day and about 5 times/week at night. I also feed spirulina flakes daily, and mix in cichlid flakes sometimes. Link to comment
Dave ESPI Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 good save slapnuts ! you need less slapping in the future... I've busted my share of tanks, one at 4 am in a drinken stumbling stupor Iaccidently wacked the one next to my bed with my hip. THANK GOD it just cracked, and leaked only a gallon that would All I need at 4 am on sunday........ LOL. side note, SEACHEM Prime = Rawks d00derz Link to comment
zizmans Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 Great job on your diligence. Some people would not have gone to the extremes you did to protect the inhabitants of you tank. Good show old man. If you've read anything I've posted here it is obvious that I drink, alot. Hmmmm, 3 in the morning. Perfect time to syphon detris out of the bottom of my tank. Only reason I know I did was because I woke up on the couch with the taste of salt in my mouth, and a piece of hose in my hand. At least that is what I hope I was doing!! Seriously though, first and last time I did any tank maintenance after a few soda pops. Knew a guy in LA that was bombed and was looking in his tank with his arms on the top. Whole thing fell over when he fell backwards, and he was too sh*t faced to save anything. Accidents do happen, I just stay away from my tank when I'm toasted, which means I'm in front of it in the day time.....except on weekends. just half joking..LOL Link to comment
zizmans Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 You said you regret the crushed. Why didn't you switch out to live sand when you redid your tank? Just curious, not being a d*ck. I guess you had other things to worry about. Or am I wrong? Would you have lost too many beneficial organisms? Link to comment
Crakeur Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 Ziz, I would imagine that switching substrate was not a thought at the time. I'm glad everything worked out. I actually have been waiting on pics of your tank and now I got to see them. Very nice indeed. how you managed to put everything back in almost the same spot is a miracle. When I moved my tank it took me hours to put the rock back as close to the original layout as possible and I still didn't get it right. I'm off to check the members section and see more. Link to comment
freakaccident Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 Ive done the drunken stupor thing before too. I didn't break the tank but I did kill everything in it. Link to comment
sjpresley Posted March 17, 2003 Author Share Posted March 17, 2003 Because the patch job worked so well, I did have time to consider what to do next. And I decided not to go with a bigger tank and to use the same substrate. Why? As you can tell, the tank is....well abit heavily loaded (no I never dose any spirits, though who doesn't appreciate a good dark stout, porter, or double bock). I wanted to maintain ALL the biological filtration I could, which means the detritus and gravel with all their associated bacteria and other small inhabitants. There is so much detritus in the gravel anyway, that the substrate looks like it's half mud and I see worm trails in it along the glass. I wanted to keep all of that life as it does a lot of work for me. I have built the system up slowly so that it was stable (continuous nutrient support) and I was relatively sure the bacterial populations could handle the load. I tried to put everything back where it was mostly because I didn't know where else it would go. Most corals were bought because I dad a place they would fit. It is similar, but the rock work is far, far, far from the same. The foot-hold many of the corals have doesn't seem as solid as before, they wobble...but don't fall down. Hopefully, they will settle in. Link to comment
DeskJockey Posted March 17, 2003 Share Posted March 17, 2003 Good save man! Dont you just hate it when your doing the smallest thing and you f-up, then you spend the entire day making up for it!! Good to see you had the equipment for an emergency triple bypass and then the transplant. Just dont let anymore freak accidents happen. Link to comment
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