Tank Cracked!

[Snow_Phoenix]

Last night, my 10G bedroom tank developed a long vertical crack from top to the bottom along the left panel of glass. The tank pretty much collapsed within seconds, and dumped water all over my floor - I managed to save everything inside it with the help of my parents, except for my candycane pistol shrimp, which was unaccounted for during the chaos of transferring everything into buckets and pails, and trying to make sure none of the water touched any electrical cords.

 

I'm quite bummed overall and torn between shrieking and shouting at the same time. The tank is not too old (around 1 year) and my shrimp was paired to two gobies - a Hi-Fin and a Randall's. Everything is currently lying in a 5G pail, and because I had a mini maxi nem anchored to the base rock, I had to stuff that rock into the pail as well (which isn't easy, since the rock is huge, and a part of it is jutting out of the pail).

 

What I want to know is how long can I keep everyone like this - in the pail. I'm currently supplementing the pail with two airstones and 1 wavemaker, so there is continuous flow and high levels of oxygen in there. But there is one big problem - today is a public holiday (Wesak) in my country. All my LFSes are closed, so I can't purchase any new tanks. All the pre-made tanks have thin glass (4mm) which is unsuitable for SW. 

 

So I'll have to custom-order a tank and wait for at least 2 weeks or so before I get it. Here's my question: Will my current setup of 2 airstones and 1 wavemaker be able to sustain a pail full of fish and inverts for 2 weeks? How often should I feed them, considering high nitrates/phosphate is the last thing I want right now?

 

P.S. I have another 2 marine tanks - 1 is a mantis tank, and for obvious reasons, I cannot shift my inverts into this tank. The other tank is more of a holding tank which I'm using to grow out my Caulerpa peltata, and due to be transferred into a 14G (which is not fully cycled and not ready to hold any livestock whatsover). If anyone has any ideas or experience on how to go about this without losing any/too many fish/inverts, I'm all ears.

P.P.S. No, I have no idea what caused the crack. I had just stepped out of the shower when it happened. All I heard was a loud 'tak' and the sound of rushing water. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was my tank that cracked, and not the shelves of my cupboards. I threw out all of the LS because it cannot be re-used in a new tank (too much dirt). I have extra, unused LS. I'm currently keeping both my LR pieces soaked in SW, but the rocks are huge and protruding out of their pails. Only one pail holds a base rock and all the critters inside (hermits, urchins, fish, nem crab, reef lobster).

 

 

 

[Christopher Marks]

@Snow_Phoenix that's horrible! 😫

 

Assuming you can keep conditions ideal in the bucket, there's no reason why you couldn't go two weeks time, but you'll have to keep close watch. The big question is whether anything else will suffer from the transfer in the near term. A tank or bucket is just a vessel really, if you can keep the conditions inside the same as you would otherwise, everything will be ok. Check your water parameters, keep the temperature stable, and be ready to do some extra water changes as a precaution. With some luck the pistol shrimp is hiding in the rock you moved. 🤞

 

How soon could you clear out the caulerpa tank, or move that into buckets instead?

[A Little Blue]

6 minutes ago, Christopher Marks said:

How soon could you clear out the caulerpa tank, or move that into buckets instead?

I would do that. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

13 minutes ago, Christopher Marks said:

@Snow_Phoenix that's horrible! 😫

 

Assuming you can keep conditions ideal in the bucket, there's no reason why you couldn't go two weeks time, but you'll have to keep close watch. The big question is whether anything else will suffer from the transfer in the near term. A tank or bucket is just a vessel really, if you can keep the conditions inside the same as you would otherwise, everything will be ok. Check your water parameters, keep the temperature stable, and be ready to do some extra water changes as a precaution. With some luck the pistol shrimp is hiding in the rock you moved. 🤞

 

How soon could you clear out the caulerpa tank, or move that into buckets instead?

Thanks for the quick response, Chris. Yes, keeping the parameters stable is what concerns me. I can't see anything in the pail - Everyone's probably crowding around the bottom (hopefully, still alive). I did see one of my urchins and hermits earlier this morning, but I couldn't see my fish. And I'm desperately hoping at this point that the candycane is indeed hiding in the rock. 

 

The Caulerpa tank is still showing signs of ammonia. It's been over a month, but the rocks I picked for that tank had some pretty bad die-offs (sponges and the like), so I presume it'll be a few more weeks before the cycle stabilizes in that tank. The macro loves the nutrients from the die-off though, and is growing in very well. I'm sorta stuck between a rock and a hard place right now. I honestly, never in my wildest dreams, expected my tank to break. Even my father was puzzled - the glass was thick, and there was no equipment or rocks placed on panel. I don't know why that panel strained and cracked compared to the others. But what's done is done. 

 

Right now, I'm just trying to save as many of my livestock as I can. 

[Lula_Mae]

So I'm a little unclear on whether you have the caulerpa tank plus another 14 cycling, or if the caulerpa IS the 14, but if you have a separate tank that's just cycling, could you empty its rocks into a bucket with its water and put the contents of the cracked 10 into it until your new tank arrives? With the water that stuff is in? Also, if you have Seachem Prime available to you, that will help neutralize any ammonia that may appear.

[Christopher Marks]

Perhaps in the short term you could find a more suitable plastic storage bin that would provide more space and visibility than the pail? A storage bin of some sort. It may be less expensive to buy a new standard size glass tank in the end though 😕 

 

Short term everything should be fine, just monitor the temperature and salinity closely. Do you think you can buy another tank tomorrow?

 

Alternatively, maybe its best to disrupt your caulerpa tank too and dump it all into buckets, then move this livestock into that tank as a 'fresh start'. It's mid cycle so the disruption would be minimal I'd think? 

 

Tough spot to be in! You'll get through it!

[banasophia]

Oh no, so sorry to hear this happened. 😞 I don’t have any tips, but just wanted to say I’m thinking of you and sending good thoughts your way for you to get through this. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

1 hour ago, Lula_Mae said:

So I'm a little unclear on whether you have the caulerpa tank plus another 14 cycling, or if the caulerpa IS the 14, but if you have a separate tank that's just cycling, could you empty its rocks into a bucket with its water and put the contents of the cracked 10 into it until your new tank arrives? With the water that stuff is in? Also, if you have Seachem Prime available to you, that will help neutralize any ammonia that may appear.

Sorry for the confusion - the caulerpa 'tank' is a plastic thing - something similar to what small children put small insects in (I think it's called a critter keeper?). I don't really classify it as a tank, but just a plastic pico. 

 

The 14G is a cycling tank on its own with LR and LS. Caulerpa holding 'tank' has its own LR pieces but no LS. Caulerpa 'tank' is quite packed with rock - and relatively stable. Worse come to worse, I can shift my inverts and Hi-Fin in there directly. 14G is not stable at all. Because the dimensions of my 14G is different (in terms of width and length) as compared to my broken 10G, my current LR from the 10G can't fit in. I know it sounds ridiculous, but my rock is abnormally huge. In my 10G, it pretty much took up 1/3 of the tank space. And there are two pieces of rock - one is in the 5G pail with all the critters, another in a larger pail with no critters. Both rocks are in a vertical position, so the bottom-half is submerged and the top-half sticks out of the pail. 

 

Sorry if this sounds so confusing. So if I include the caulerpa plastic pico, it's 3 other salty tanks and not 2 as I mentioned earlier. 1 mantis tank, 1 caulerpa pico, 1 cycling 14G. 😞

 

1 hour ago, Christopher Marks said:

Perhaps in the short term you could find a more suitable plastic storage bin that would provide more space and visibility than the pail? A storage bin of some sort. It may be less expensive to buy a new standard size glass tank in the end though 😕 

 

Short term everything should be fine, just monitor the temperature and salinity closely. Do you think you can buy another tank tomorrow?

 

Alternatively, maybe its best to disrupt your caulerpa tank too and dump it all into buckets, then move this livestock into that tank as a 'fresh start'. It's mid cycle so the disruption would be minimal I'd think? 

 

Tough spot to be in! You'll get through it!

Yes, I'll try my best to buy a tank tomorrow - even a small one would do at this rate. Chris, the caulerpa tank is plastic and miserably tiny. As in 3G or so, with all the rock removed. I have a lot of livestock - but LuluMae gave me an idea. I think I'll shift my inverts into the caulerpa tank. It's hideous but stable. My 14G is not stable at all. I can lock it down with Prime, but I just have a rotten gut feeling that if I shift anything in there, they'll die. That tank is riding out a very hard cycle. 

58 minutes ago, banasophia said:

Oh no, so sorry to hear this happened. 😞 I don’t have any tips, but just wanted to say I’m thinking of you and sending good thoughts your way for you to get through this. 

Thank you.

[Tamberav]

Dang 😞 The main thing about the 5g bucket being the tank is to watch the heat. I have had pumps heat up the water pretty high in those buckets.

 

Could use a plastic storage box as a tank.

 

 

 

[Lula_Mae]

1 hour ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

Sorry for the confusion - the caulerpa 'tank' is a plastic thing - something similar to what small children put small insects in (I think it's called a critter keeper?). I don't really classify it as a tank, but just a plastic pico. 

 

The 14G is a cycling tank on its own with LR and LS. Caulerpa holding 'tank' has its own LR pieces but no LS. Caulerpa 'tank' is quite packed with rock - and relatively stable. Worse come to worse, I can shift my inverts and Hi-Fin in there directly. 14G is not stable at all. Because the dimensions of my 14G is different (in terms of width and length) as compared to my broken 10G, my current LR from the 10G can't fit in. I know it sounds ridiculous, but my rock is abnormally huge. In my 10G, it pretty much took up 1/3 of the tank space. And there are two pieces of rock - one is in the 5G pail with all the critters, another in a larger pail with no critters. Both rocks are in a vertical position, so the bottom-half is submerged and the top-half sticks out of the pail. 

 

Sorry if this sounds so confusing. So if I include the caulerpa plastic pico, it's 3 other salty tanks and not 2 as I mentioned earlier. 1 mantis tank, 1 caulerpa pico, 1 cycling 14G. 😞

 

Yes, I'll try my best to buy a tank tomorrow - even a small one would do at this rate. Chris, the caulerpa tank is plastic and miserably tiny. As in 3G or so, with all the rock removed. I have a lot of livestock - but LuluMae gave me an idea. I think I'll shift my inverts into the caulerpa tank. It's hideous but stable. My 14G is not stable at all. I can lock it down with Prime, but I just have a rotten gut feeling that if I shift anything in there, they'll die. That tank is riding out a very hard cycle. 

Thank you.

Yeah if the rock won't fit then the 14 isn't an option, although I'm not sure what I meant was clear-I was suggesting removing all the rock and all the water from the 14 (and putting in a bucket to continue cycling) and replacing it with the rock and water from the 10, and topping off with more fresh saltwater if necessary. You may have some dieoff on the part of the rock that sticks out of the water, too. If the caulerpa tank is stable it might be good to move the inverts there.  

[Pjanssen]

Not a good way to start the day. Sorry this happened. I personally would use the storage bin, but like @Tamberav said, heat would be my concern. You can put a fan over it and top of a couple of times a day with RO to compensate for the extra evaporation.

[Snow_Phoenix]

2 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

Yeah if the rock won't fit then the 14 isn't an option, although I'm not sure what I meant was clear-I was suggesting removing all the rock and all the water from the 14 (and putting in a bucket to continue cycling) and replacing it with the rock and water from the 10, and topping off with more fresh saltwater if necessary. You may have some dieoff on the part of the rock that sticks out of the water, too. If the caulerpa tank is stable it might be good to move the inverts there.  

The problem is the rock from the 10G won't fit into the 14G because the rock is too broad, and although my 14G has larger gallon capacity, it's only 12" wide. The rock from the 10G was almost 14" wide at its broadest point. My 10G is smaller gallon-wise, but the tank was wider (around 15" wide, if I'm not mistaken). The differences in tank dimensions and the size of the rock is currently the problem, so even if I shift all the LR and LS in the 14G and replace it with the LR from the 10G, the LR from the 10G just won't fit into the 14G. Sorry for all the confusion - I've been trying my best to figure out a way to stuff the whole base rock into the 14G, but unless I angle it upwards (in which case both sides of the glass will be impacted by the rock), I can't fit it in. I can't toss the rock out either because my nem is anchored firmly to it and that nem's being hosted by a nem crab. 

I've tried breaking it before (several times), but it's too thick to be hammered. Thank you though for the suggestions - I think I'll use the caulerpa tank as an invert holding tank. 

 

11 minutes ago, Pjanssen said:

Not a good way to start the day. Sorry this happened. I personally would use the storage bin, but like @Tamberav said, heat would be my concern. You can put a fan over it and top of a couple of times a day with RO to compensate for the extra evaporation.

More like not a good way to end the night - it's been almost 24 hours since the crack. I just peeked into the bucket - spotted 1 of my urchins, my blue legged hermit and my Randall's goby. Couldn't see anyone else, but I'm hoping there's life deep down there. 

 

I'll be visiting my LFSes to get a tank tomorrow. Even a temporary one is better than no tank. I don't think I've ever felt this shaken or frustrated. I feel a migraine coming. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Also, I topped off more SW into the 5G pail so that most of the rock remains submerged. I'm thinking of shifting it into a larger pail, but don't want to incur the risk of losing anything during the shift. 

[Lula_Mae]

1 hour ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

The problem is the rock from the 10G won't fit into the 14G because the rock is too broad, and although my 14G has larger gallon capacity, it's only 12" wide. The rock from the 10G was almost 14" wide at its broadest point. My 10G is smaller gallon-wise, but the tank was wider (around 15" wide, if I'm not mistaken). The differences in tank dimensions and the size of the rock is currently the problem, so even if I shift all the LR and LS in the 14G and replace it with the LR from the 10G, the LR from the 10G just won't fit into the 14G. Sorry for all the confusion - I've been trying my best to figure out a way to stuff the whole base rock into the 14G, but unless I angle it upwards (in which case both sides of the glass will be impacted by the rock), I can't fit it in. I can't toss the rock out either because my nem is anchored firmly to it and that nem's being hosted by a nem crab. 

I've tried breaking it before (several times), but it's too thick to be hammered. Thank you though for the suggestions - I think I'll use the caulerpa tank as an invert holding tank. 

 

More like not a good way to end the night - it's been almost 24 hours since the crack. I just peeked into the bucket - spotted 1 of my urchins, my blue legged hermit and my Randall's goby. Couldn't see anyone else, but I'm hoping there's life deep down there. 

 

I'll be visiting my LFSes to get a tank tomorrow. Even a temporary one is better than no tank. I don't think I've ever felt this shaken or frustrated. I feel a migraine coming. 

That makes sense, 15" is super wide for a 10 gallon!  I think a temporary tank is probably your best option for now, like you said.  You'll get through this!

[Clown79]

So sorry this happened, it's horrible.

 

Keeping a storage bin lying around is always helpful in these situations, it's a quick tank replacement.

 

 

[RustyRocket]

Dont stress too much about the bucket reefing, as long as your biological filtration survived, circulation and surface agitation is good, you can last for days. I've had a pair of clowns, some softies, chaeto & LR in a 5G bucket for close to a year (9 months) with only a AC20 on it. Currently I'm in the process of upgrading as well right now so main display tank is down and everything is in those storage troughs as shown by Tamberav, its been about a month now.

 

Point is, bucket and container reefing can be sustained for as long as you keep up the water quality, which if you do your typical maintenance on it, then it'll be the same. Go ransack your house, any large contain to keep everything submerged will be ok!

All the best bud!!

[Christopher Marks]

How are things going today @Snow_Phoenix?

[Snow_Phoenix]

11 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

How are things going today @Snow_Phoenix?

Hi Chris! I got a new tank last night. My LFS kept their store open until 10pm so that I could get one, and my dad drove me there immediately after work (this LFS is quite far, and I don't know the roads well, so I needed help getting there). I'll upload a pic soon, and probably start a new tank thread. New tank was actually a display model with piping leading to a sump. The manager detached the pipes, patched up the hole using a new piece of glass and today morning I could finally fill it. I'm letting the water run for a few hours before moving all the livestock in. 

 

Tank's around 15G, if I'm not mistaken.