I guess I was lucky..........

[Rush07]

About 10:00pm tonight I was walking by my 55 gallon tank and thought I saw a drip of water on the bottom right corner. As I bend down to look at it, it begins to grow quickly to a drip and then to an all out gush of water!! I grab my wife and she starts siphoning the water out while I am netting the fish and transferring them into the 110 gallon tank. I think all but the black neons are big enough to not be dinner for the eel. If any are left in the morning I can take them to my sister in laws or cousins until I am back up and running.

Anyway, I emptied the gravel into a bucket and then filled it with tank water. How long do you think the bacteria can survive in the bucket of tank water? If I can get the tank fixed and filled by the end of the weekend, will I still have good bacteria to cycle the tank quickly? Same goes for my Fluval. If I leave it full of water will the bacteria survive?

I may just use this as an excuse to get a bigger tank. This one is only 2 years old! How could it spring a leak so quickly? I got it at Walmart and I would like to take back all my replies to threads regarding Walmart tanks. Right now I don't think they are so good. I am going to try and silicone the bottom of the tank again and see if it hold water overnight tomorrow.

I guess was pretty lucky to be walking by since I was on my way to bed. If this had started 10 minutes later I am pretty sure I would have had 55 gallons of water on the floor and a bunch of dead fish! What a pain in the a**!

 

[YahooFishKeeper]

that sucks big time! no problems with wally world tanks here. most of mine are/were from there. i think you will have minimal loss of bacteria if you add an air stone, and a source of ammonia.

 

[Lotus]

With your filter media and gravel, it's really important to keep the water flowing around them to keep the bacteria alive. If you leave them for more than a few hours, the anaerobic bacteria will take over, and you'll end up with a really stinky filter that will poison your fish.

If you can, maybe get the filter running on the bucket to keep the water moving through both (you will have to put the bucket higher than the filter).

I really have no comment on the tank... sometimes they just "go." Unfortunately, most of the cheaper tanks save by being less careful with the silicone, which is of course, the most important part of the tank. While the tank is out, double check that your stand is level and even.

 

[Rush07]

Thanks. I will try and rig something on the bucket to keep the water moving through it. Not a huge deal if I have to cycle it again. The stand was always level so I don't think that was it. I am going to try and re-silicone the tank this weekend. Is it necessary to remove the old silcone or can I just go over it?

 

[YahooFishKeeper]

take the old off. silicone wont bond to silicone.

 

[Rush07]

OK. Thanks. All the black neons made it through the night. Good news for them. Since all the fish made it through and I only got about 3-4 gallons of water on the floor, I am not nearly as upset as I would think. I was waiting to get some bigger carniverous fish in the big tank but had not gotten around to it so it worked out pretty well.

 

[Mahamotorworks]

You got really lucky. I would be really mad if one day I woke up to a lot of water on the floor. Get some pics of the tank and what you did to repair it so if any one else runs into this problem we have a head start.

MAHA

 

[Rush07]

I will. I am going to take it our to the garage to day and clean it out and see if I can see where it was breached. I put an UGF in there when I set it up but only ran it for a couple of months. Unbeleiveable how much crap was under there! I will let you know how the repairs go.

 

[cusunfireguy]

Ouch! I'm really sorry to hear about that! If you don't return it, I would atleast go on their website and send them an email about what happened. They may try to do something for you. Good Luck!

Steven

 

[Rush07]

I thought about going to Walmart and seeing what they would do. They will pretty much take anything back. I will try the website as well. Thanks.

 

[Rush07]

Well, I got the tank outside and cleaned out and got a good look at the silicone job on the bottom of the tank. It is amazing that I got no leaks for 2 years! In some areas it was not even covering the seam! When we were carrying it out there as a little water left in the tank that i could not siphon out and as we tilted the tank to go up the stairs it all came gushing out of the bottom of the tank! The silicone has virtually no adhesion to the glass around the bottom anywhere. Water must have gotten under the silicone and it failed all the way around.
Anyway, it should be pretty easy to remove the silicone that is there now once the tank dries out a little. I would imagine I would need to clean the area to be silconed well firsts. Do you think I need to score the area as well so the silicone has more to bite into?

 

[Lotus]

I don't think you need to score the glass, but some people use rubbing alcohol to make sure there's no grease/oil to help the silicone adhere.

Make sure you let the silicone dry thoroughly before you put water in the tank.

 

[Rush07]

Thanks Lotus

 

[f8fan]

Wow Rush! That's a nightmare. I was at my brothers house about a month ago and me and my nephew redid his ten gallon with some nice new gaudy decorations that nine year old boys find "pretty" for their fish (insert big here ha ha) and we moved it to a new room. It didn't take the move too well and started leaking a bit, then whoosh! Out came 10 gallons of water on my brothers new carpet. The bottom cracked right up and apart At least it was nice clean water, I reassured him His female bettas did a little flopping around but within an hour "Aunt Kelly" bought him a new 10 gallon and all was well....
Good luck siliconing your tank!

 

[Mahamotorworks]

I would reccomend using Lacquer (sp?) Thinner. I am in the Auto painting business and that is the only thing that will remove the old silicone residue.
Take some pic so we can see how you are fixing it.

MAHA

 

[wilsonriverfish]

That stinks,

I was thinking just a couple of days ago how that would suck to have to deal with mega gallons of water erupting from the tank.

 

[Rush07]

Thanks Maha. I don't think I am going to have enough time to do much today except maybe try and clean off the old silicone. I will take some pics of how it looks not so you can see what a crappy job looks like from the Manufacturer. I never looked at it out of the box. Probably should have.

And Wilson, please don't think how much it would suck if I died...........

 

[Rush07]

Did some searching for info on resealing an aquarium. This was the best article I found if anyone is interested.
Aquamaniacs :: View article - How to Reseal Your Glass Aquarium - by Jake DeTommaso

 

[nealio]

Ouch!! That really sucks, I had close to the same experience with a 50G I just got off of craigslist. Unfortunately sealing a hex 50 was too much work for me. I couldn't get it to hold correctly.

One tip I would suggest before you start, make sure you dry everything out really good, then get some saran wrap and wrap your whole tank so nothing moves when you take off the silicone. My tank shifted all over the place making it near impossible to re-seal. Hey, I guess it’s just another excuse for me to buy a new tank

 

[nealio]

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