Disaster Strikes!

[Europhyllia]

On a side note its things like this that scare the heck out of me. Id rather have a disease outbreak tank crash versus the tank itself busting open. My 180g I know is at least 10years old probably. Im the 3rd owner. Doesnt have the best silicone, but it is a old Oceanic and they built them to last. Never had a tank split a seam on my ( I just knocked on wood!) Hope to never have the misfortune.

I am pretty sure it was our fault. If you looked at the silicone it actually was still perfect, elastic, no curling etc.
I thought we'd drag it a couple of feet across the tile floor. My husband thought it would go faster if he picked up one side off the ground and I pushed on the other side. We had drained the water but left the sand in so there was quite a bit of weight on the bottom.
When he picked it up and I moved it forward I heard a rip sound but couldn't see anything so figuring it must have just pulled a little on the wood stand.
In retrospect the torque on the tank half suspended, being moved with the weight inside of it shifting must have weakened the structural seam in that corner.
Just one of those things where a small mistake leads to major repercussions. It's not one of the most forgiving hobbies.
Had we taken the time to:
a) empty the sand
b) push it across rather than lift on one side and shove on the other
it probably would have turned out just fine. As usual hurrying things really gets you in this hobby.

That being said somebody running the faucet at full blast in the next room now really makes my heart beat faster. I don't think I'll ever look at tanks the same way again. Kind of scared of the 215 coming. lol. Yay for nanos!

We got extra boards and will yank up the floor and replace the damaged ones in a few weeks when the new tank is done. The main thing now will be for all of the fish to survive.
Super crammed to have them all in a 10g. Saltwater is ready and they will either move into that temp 75g tonight or the new 30g QT...

[Kristy]

Karin,
I keep coming back to this thread for updates and every time I do, I notice that I have stopped breathing and am holding my breath for you in anxiety over your fish... I know how you love them so!

*Exhale*... glad to hear there is a plan to put them in more water tonight. Sharing 10g sounds awfully stressful. We upgraded from 100g to 210g a couple of years ago and ended up losing only two fish in the process - a yellow tailed blue damsel and a blue/green chromis, both of which we had talked about finding another home for in the upgrade but had run out of time and energy! They were floating in a bag for temp acclimation and somehow that bag got sucked up and squished in such a way that there was no oxygen for them. So, floating too many bags in the tank at once to reintroduce our fish turned out to be our only real mistake (just did not notice that bag because there were so many floating at once).

Our fish were in one of those 100g livestock tubs like Alton's with only a couple of rocks and a couple of PVC pipes for hiding places, a heater and a powerhead going, and an egg crate thrown over the top for discouraging fish-jumping as well as cat curiosity. The fish did just fine in there for the estimated 36 hours transition. Our corals were all in 30g Rubbermaid tubs with no lighting and just a Koralia I think - might have been a heater too bc Mike is super-compulsive about temp stability.

It was a ton of work and a very long weekend... but it can be done! I honestly think Erik's mistake (Erik, chime in and let me know what you think) is that he got a tad over-confident after it had gone so smoothly and added too much new livestock too quickly after the upgrade, not giving the system enough of a chance to adjust, etc.

Anyway, please learn how to ask for help / accept offered help. ;) Look at all these amazingly generous offers. Next time you need to move a heavy tank, even just across the room, post it up here and you'll have a line of able-bodied men at your door in an hour (my husband probably being one of them!)

[Europhyllia]

picking up 75g today at 6pm

Hang on little fishies!
Urchins cease eating my precious dragon's breath macro RIGHT NOW!

[Mr Cob]

Right on!

Bag up some of that macro if they can't keep their little spines off...!

[Europhyllia]

new tank is now in dining room. I don't 'love' it but I think it will be functional and hopefully I can resell it in a couple of months without too much of a loss.
I love that the front opens up completely and access to the sump is so easy. The reef ready drain is also very nice.
I am waiting for the kids to go to bed before I start acclimating the fish...

[Europhyllia]

first casualties:
coral:
frogspawn and duncan -eaten by the rainbow acan echinata (too close in holding tank after emergency evacuation :(
I love Duncans and this Duncan frag was doing excellent. Same with the Euphyllia - my fraging fundamentals freebies!

fish:
small blue gold escensius blenny - RIP Goldie!