Tank Leak Disaster

The morning of March 19^th, 2015, I woke up to the shouting that the house was flooded. I scrambled out of bed to find the area of the fish tank surrounded with water. The tank lost about 20 gallons of water and the filters were starting to make cranking sounds. I quickly gathered all the towels to dry the puddles while looking for the source of the leak. Turned out that the bottom frame of the 75gal cracked into pieces and the water leaked from the back down to the stand and down to the floor. The worst part was that this happened during the night when no one was awake to catch this disaster early.

After drying the water and placed a bucket underneath the leak, I went to PetSmart to look for a new 75gal tank and stand. Luckily I browsed the pet stores often so I knew which store has the 75gal set. Cost of the 75gal tank with glass cover and light hood was $160; the stand cost was $135.  Assembling the stand took the most time.

After the new tank and stand were completed, I had to move all the discus and fishes to the 20gal hospital tank. Using water from the leaking 75g, I filled up the 20gal breeder/hospital tank. Then moved all the fish to the hospital tank one by one in bag.

Friday morning, I set up the new 75gal with as much of the old water I preserved from the leaking 75g. That was about 30 percent of the old water then filled up the rest with new tap water. Conditioned the tank with Prime, lowered the PH with Seachem Acid Buffer and poured in about 180ml of Tetra Safestart nitrifying bacteria into the tank, and ran the canister filter.

Tested the water the next day, and there was sign of low ammonia, but no nitrite. Giving that I was running the mature canister filter, the same sand substrate, and driftwood, I expected the cycle to finish rather quickly.

Sunday March 22^nd, the new 75g was cycled. Ammonia and nitrite tested zero, nitrate was at 2.0. I compared the hospital tank temperature and PH with the new 75gal and they were the same. I felt it was safe to move all the fish over to the new 75gal.