ratboy
Mon, 13th Nov 2006, 10:17 AM
My 400 gallon reef thats what!!
(8:00 AM) I was getting ready to do some long overdue projects on my tank when I noticed a decent amount of salt creep on my right side return line. I wiped away the salt and nearly threw up when I saw what I thought to be a small crack. I got a flashlight and sure enough a small 2" crack running from the return hole to the back of the bottom pane with a decent drip running down the line!! First thing I did was clear the area of my son and called my brother in law (Richie @ Holey Mackeral Aquariums/Everclear transparency Refurb.) He grabbed his emergency trailer of equipment and headed right over.
(10:00 AM) We setup a 150 gallon agriculture tub next to the tank and started putting corals into the tub and the nearby 75 that I just bought last week from a friend and had running. We had most of the corals in the tub when we heard a wet sound and saw that the ghetto rigged plexi window covering an unused bulkhead hole was leaking!! Ahhhhhhhh #!&*^!! So we drained it down and pulled all the corals and put them back in the tank.
(1:00 PM) Back to Richies house to get a 8' diameter agri tub to put into my garage. This went much better and after another few hours we had the rock piled up on one side and the sand dumped into the tank (400 gallon deep sand bed - you do the math!). SO at this point the the tub was 1/2 full of water and the rock and sand were in there but what a soupy mess! Fortunately Ritchie was packing a 2 hp pool pump hooked up to a 5 micro pleated filter. Within 1 hour you could see the fish and bottom and after 2 it looked pretty darn good. By dinner time I was putting my corals into the tub and everything was safe with things that should be wet, wet and dry, dry.
(8:00 PM) After helping my wife with the kids (4 y.o and 1 month old -- oh yes this was quite a convenient time for a marathon fish day!) I took to cleaning up as much of the mess as I could. I squeezed the tank inside and wet dry'ed out the remaining sand and water.
(2:00 AM) Everything is cleaned up and hopefully it wont smell in there after my wife opens a window today.
The only water that hit the floor was what came out of the 150 tub (that was the real kick in the jewels) so I consider myself lucky. The crack happened in of course the weakest part of the tank. The bottom is 2 ply 3/4" glass but the bulkheads are countersunk through the first ply. The crack ran from the hole to the back and since there was no first layer it dripped... The damage to the tank is minor but logistics with 2 ton tank are greatly different from all but a few of the tanks I've encountered. Options ranging from contacting Oceanic for repair (not likely since company reorg), a new acrylic tank (holey $$$$!) or get out of the big tank game (still cost hundreds of $$) . None of those options were appealing since my whole family loves the tank and the cabinetry matches our other furniture perfectly. So Richie and I are going to take this as an opportunity to make some changes and cover the bottom and back in fiberglass. Not only will this repair the leak but I can upgrade plumbing sizes, move sumps outside of the room, and build a huge plywood and fiberglass sump. I was prepping to build a fiberglass tank before I bought this one so the only diff is I have everything squared up and I have a preset size to work with. Other plans include closed loop style jets hidden in wall/bottom, 1/2 length of tank calfo overflow... Watch the for sale forum for the 75 I bought recently and a bunch of other hardware and possibly frags (zoos mostly) to finance my newest project (and buy my wife something nice )!!
From this:
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c264/eswansiger/fulltank_4982.jpg
To this:
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c264/eswansiger/DCP_5524.jpg
(Im even thinking about using the engine lift to hold my lights! And I'll bet I have the only tank in town with an intake and fuel injectors (car parts on bench to right...)
Via this:
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c264/eswansiger/DCP_5515.jpg
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c264/eswansiger/DCP_5518.jpg
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c264/eswansiger/DCP_5522.jpg
(8:00 AM) I was getting ready to do some long overdue projects on my tank when I noticed a decent amount of salt creep on my right side return line. I wiped away the salt and nearly threw up when I saw what I thought to be a small crack. I got a flashlight and sure enough a small 2" crack running from the return hole to the back of the bottom pane with a decent drip running down the line!! First thing I did was clear the area of my son and called my brother in law (Richie @ Holey Mackeral Aquariums/Everclear transparency Refurb.) He grabbed his emergency trailer of equipment and headed right over.
(10:00 AM) We setup a 150 gallon agriculture tub next to the tank and started putting corals into the tub and the nearby 75 that I just bought last week from a friend and had running. We had most of the corals in the tub when we heard a wet sound and saw that the ghetto rigged plexi window covering an unused bulkhead hole was leaking!! Ahhhhhhhh #!&*^!! So we drained it down and pulled all the corals and put them back in the tank.
(1:00 PM) Back to Richies house to get a 8' diameter agri tub to put into my garage. This went much better and after another few hours we had the rock piled up on one side and the sand dumped into the tank (400 gallon deep sand bed - you do the math!). SO at this point the the tub was 1/2 full of water and the rock and sand were in there but what a soupy mess! Fortunately Ritchie was packing a 2 hp pool pump hooked up to a 5 micro pleated filter. Within 1 hour you could see the fish and bottom and after 2 it looked pretty darn good. By dinner time I was putting my corals into the tub and everything was safe with things that should be wet, wet and dry, dry.
(8:00 PM) After helping my wife with the kids (4 y.o and 1 month old -- oh yes this was quite a convenient time for a marathon fish day!) I took to cleaning up as much of the mess as I could. I squeezed the tank inside and wet dry'ed out the remaining sand and water.
(2:00 AM) Everything is cleaned up and hopefully it wont smell in there after my wife opens a window today.
The only water that hit the floor was what came out of the 150 tub (that was the real kick in the jewels) so I consider myself lucky. The crack happened in of course the weakest part of the tank. The bottom is 2 ply 3/4" glass but the bulkheads are countersunk through the first ply. The crack ran from the hole to the back and since there was no first layer it dripped... The damage to the tank is minor but logistics with 2 ton tank are greatly different from all but a few of the tanks I've encountered. Options ranging from contacting Oceanic for repair (not likely since company reorg), a new acrylic tank (holey $$$$!) or get out of the big tank game (still cost hundreds of $$) . None of those options were appealing since my whole family loves the tank and the cabinetry matches our other furniture perfectly. So Richie and I are going to take this as an opportunity to make some changes and cover the bottom and back in fiberglass. Not only will this repair the leak but I can upgrade plumbing sizes, move sumps outside of the room, and build a huge plywood and fiberglass sump. I was prepping to build a fiberglass tank before I bought this one so the only diff is I have everything squared up and I have a preset size to work with. Other plans include closed loop style jets hidden in wall/bottom, 1/2 length of tank calfo overflow... Watch the for sale forum for the 75 I bought recently and a bunch of other hardware and possibly frags (zoos mostly) to finance my newest project (and buy my wife something nice )!!
From this:
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c264/eswansiger/fulltank_4982.jpg
To this:
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c264/eswansiger/DCP_5524.jpg
(Im even thinking about using the engine lift to hold my lights! And I'll bet I have the only tank in town with an intake and fuel injectors (car parts on bench to right...)
Via this:
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c264/eswansiger/DCP_5515.jpg
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c264/eswansiger/DCP_5518.jpg
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c264/eswansiger/DCP_5522.jpg