Came home to a leaking tank

[TTSkipper]

Went right from work to dinner with my inlaws. When we got home at 8:15pm we found our 37 gallon reef tank down about 4 inches of water and water all over the floor.

I drained 10 gallons into my qt tank and put the fish in there, 2 ocellaris and a mandarin.
I drained another 10 gallons into a Rubbermaid bin and put some rock and the coral and inverts in there.
I drained another 5 gallons into a bucket and put more rock in there.

I ran to PETCO and was able to get there before they closed and bought a 29 gallon since that was all they had with the same footprint as the 37.

I transferred the sand into the new tank and added the water from the bucket, most of the water from the Rubbermaid, all of the rock and another 10 gallons of salt water I had in my mixing Rubbermaid can. I quickly mixed up another 15 gallons of salt water and added about 5 to top off the rest of the tank. I let the hob filter run for an hour with new carbon and a fine media to polish the water. Once the water looked clear I added my coral back in.

My plan is to leave the fish in the qt tank until tomorrow morning then test params and add them in.

I am not sure but I think that the leak may have been caused by the added stress of the Reef Octopus hob Skimmer I added last night on the tank. The leak seemed to be in the bottom somewhere. The tank was about 5 years old and used to be a fw tank.

I am looking for advice on what I did right and what I may have done wrong as well as any suggested next steps.

I have made up 15 more gallons of water because I assume that the tank is going to have a nasty cycle and I want to keep ammonia and nitrates nitrites low and will need to do a few water changes. I have not added the Skimmer to the new tank yet, when should I?

This really sucks because my tank was doing so well, coraline was starting to spread like crazy and my corals looked great, lps and softies.

 

[TTSkipper]

Just check on the tank and corals looking good under moonlights. Everything is opened up except for some gsp I added this past weekend and a few zoas on one rock. Duncans, acan, micromussa, zoas and leather all look good. Inverts look good too, small tuxedo urchin, small linkia starfish and feather duster as well as small cuc.

 

[Reef Fixations]

Are you sure that your tank sprung a leak?

Sounds to me like perhaps the skimmer wasn't set correctly or was simply being broken in and it overskimmed and leaked all over the place. It happens a lot with new skimmers.

Is this your first HOB skimmer?

 

[TTSkipper]

Are you sure that your tank sprung a leak?

Sounds to me like perhaps the skimmer wasn't set correctly or was simply being broken in and it overskimmed and leaked all over the place. It happens a lot with new skimmers.

Is this your first HOB skimmer?

Definitely the tank. It is my 1st skimmer but I purposely left the cup up high so that there was almost nothing being collected because I did now want an overflow and the skimmer body and pipes were dry. There was maybe a 1/4" of liquid in the skimmer cup and I think that was from when I had the cup lower before I left for work this am. The tank also continued to leak until I got all of the water out.

 

[JonnyJ]

I wouldn't have transferred the sand personally but keep an eye on your parameters. If its Old it can cause a lot of problems.

This is just a constant reminder that you never know what could happen when your gone.

If your not familiar with the skimmer (personally I don't know much about that model) and it doesn't have a flood proof design then I would suggest holding off until you have a day off to monitor it.


There are plenty of ammonia reducers available and wouldn't be a bad thing to keep on hand if fresh water isn't available.

I would add some carbon and Just try to keep your temp and salinity stable since everything is probably stressed.

 

[tomtoothdoc]

your quick action do doubt saved your livestock. i would assume you had some kind of circulation going (power head or airstone) when they were transferred into qt and bins.
the only thing i may have done a little differently was to ditch the sand. when you moved the sand into the new tank, that stirred up the muck and the nasties. also petco sells natural sea water, instead of newly mixed water, that might have been a better "top off".
but all in all you did good. continue to do tests for ammonia, nitrite, nitrates before adding any more livestock back in. also would do more frequent water changes....perhaps like 2x a week to keep the ammonia, nitrites, nitrates in check.
good luck and keep us posted.

 

[tomtoothdoc]

also i would buy live pods to feed your mandarin since the pods population may be decimated in the process. i might even consider finding him a new home....in a bigger well established tank.

 

[piranhapat]

I would add some bacteria to help stable the ammo and nitrates. Pick it up at any LFS. Will help aid the sand that you added to your tank.

 

[TTSkipper]

also i would buy live pods to feed your mandarin since the pods population may be decimated in the process. i might even consider finding him a new home....in a bigger well established tank.

I forgot to add that this was part of the plan. I will stop at my LFS today and buy some.

 

[TTSkipper]

I would add some bacteria to help stable the ammo and nitrates. Pick it up at any LFS. Will help aid the sand that you added to your tank.

I had half a bottle of Biospira that I just added.

 

[TTSkipper]

I wouldn't have transferred the sand personally but keep an eye on your parameters. If its Old it can cause a lot of problems.

This is just a constant reminder that you never know what could happen when your gone.

If your not familiar with the skimmer (personally I don't know much about that model) and it doesn't have a flood proof design then I would suggest holding off until you have a day off to monitor it.


There are plenty of ammonia reducers available and wouldn't be a bad thing to keep on hand if fresh water isn't available.

I would add some carbon and Just try to keep your temp and salinity stable since everything is probably stressed.

As for the skimmer, it is a Reef Octopus BH-1000, it looks like if you let the collection cup fill up it would just pour back down the hole the bubbles flow up and out the other side. Maybe once I do add it back and turn it on I will run it way low and really wet to see what happens when it fills up just to be sure.

I have a bottle of Prime that I purchased a few months ago and have never used. I could use that I guess in a pinch to drop the ammonia.

 

[Reef Fixations]

Good point. I didn't know that they overflowed back itno the tank. Nice design. Many others don't do that.

I hope all of your effort pays off. Lots of us have made the mistake of using the old sand but that's how we learn.

Best of luck.

 

[TTSkipper]

So far so good, ammonia and nitrate are barely reading on my API test kit, PH is good. All coral are doing well and fully extend, the only thing that happened is my feather duster dropped it's crown. I left the tube in to see if it will regrow the crown, but because of the angle that the tube is at I can not see if the worm is still inside.

Fish are still in QT but I will add them back this weekend and turn on the protein skimmer since I will be around for the day on Saturday.

I also tested the old tank by filling it with water in the back yard and you can see water coming out of the plastic trim on one of the corners on the bottom of the tank.

Anyone have any suggestions on good places to buy pods since I will probably have to be buying them for a while to build up stock since I don't have a fuge?

 

[Reef Fixations]

Try reefs2go

I think Wingo had them.too

 

[TL1000RSquid]

Pods I've bought from reefs2go and reefcleaners, of the two I liked reefs2go better more expensive but I think I got a bigger pod selection microscopic ones and little bug sized ones reefcleaners were all microscopic.

I think you'll probably be ok cycle wise I just recently transferred my 10g nano into a 29, moved over all my well established live rock, a couple cups of my old live sand and 30lbs of new sand, along with the dirty media in my aquaclear110. Ammonia hit about .75ppm and 10 nitrates couple water changes over a couple days and all levels back to 0.

 

[TTSkipper]

Bought some pods from LFS yesterday and transferred the fish from QT back to the main tank. Everything is looking good. My feather duster is still alive and I saw him poking out of his tube a little last night without his crown. Coral looks great and I actually like my aquascaping a lot more than when it was in my other tank. I have not added the protein skimmer yet simply because I want to be home for a day when I add it back in to make sure it is not overflowing/leaking.

 

[Oddomatic]

Sorry to hear about your tank leaking. That's just awful. I hope everything pans out ok...

 

[TTSkipper]

Everything looks good. My feather duster is growing it's feathers back. Now if I could just get my tuxedo urchin from picking him up and dragging him around the tank. Here is a photo of the feather duster

Here is a gallery of new photos I took of the new tank.

Gallery from my tank

 

[Awibrandy]

That is great news!!!!

Have you tried wedging the feather duster in between the rocks so the urchin can't get to it? I despise urchins!:Blurp:

 

[TTSkipper]

That is great news!!!!

Have you tried wedging the feather duster in between the rocks so the urchin can't get to it? I despise urchins!:Blurp:

I tried that but no luck. I love how cool he looks with the clear tentacles but I think he is going in the for sale section this weekend. He just does too much damage. He mowed down my clove polyps and chewed a hole in the middle of the small piece of gsp I have.