Leaky tank nightmare

[Kylaohhh]

As some of you know, my friend's 110 gallon tank sprung a leak yesterday morning. She woke up to a nice puddle on the floor and water dripping from the inside front of the stand. She called us at 9:30 and we were out the door.

When we arrived she was trying to stem the water flow with towels and catch what she could in 5 gal buckets! We knew this wasn't going to cut it, so we sent her to Ace hardware to buy two 45 gallon trash cans. While she was gone we used her return nozzles to fill 3 buckets and started removing some of her corals to those buckets. Since Ace hardware was so close she was back very quickly with the trash cans so we placed them strategically and started emptying all the water into them. By this time all her coral covered live rocks were already safely tucked away into the buckets and all we needed to get rid of now was her water, sand and live rock with nothing on it.

Thank goodness her tank isn't an all out reef or we would have had some squished corals. Once the cans were full of water, we placed all the remaining LR into one (along with a very large sunken ship decoration that she insists on having in her tank), caught all of her fish, crabs etc., and the sand was excavated into the other can. The sand had a nice clean smell to it so after a frantic call to GaryP, we decided to reuse it.

She had a 55 gallon tank which contained African Cichlids that she was planning to tear down and make into a SW tank anyway so she called a friend that had expressed an interest in the fish and gave them to her.

We then completely broke down that 55 gal to bare glass, cleaned it thoroughly with hot water, built a jaubert style plenum (after a quick trip to Lowes) and got the substrate into the bottom of the tank. We used a great deal of the water from the 110 to refill the 55, and then topped off with fresh SW. We got her LR, corals and fish back into the tank and I let her borrow my 36 Corallife PC to supply light to her tank. By 8 pm, the tank had cleared nicely, the livestock all seemed to be in good shape and her corals were open and seemed to be recovering well.

The 4 or 5 pieces of LR that were too large to fit into her 55 are still in a trash can with the remaining sand and a pump to circulate the water. We also placed a bubbler into the water and in a moment of inspiration, I took one of her knee high stockings and filled it with carbon to absorb the excess ammonia released by the sand. I dropped that into the can and said a little prayer.

Today I feel like I've been run over by a fleet of mac trucks. But we did tear down and set up two tanks in one day!

If anyone has any thoughts on what to do with the refugium and the wet dry, let me know. She is taking the tank to be resealed this afternoon but it may take a while. We have a PH on the fuge and a PC bulb on a clip on light over it. Dunno what else we should do. My brain has run out of ideas.

Thanks,
Kyla

[::pete::]

Kyla

It seems that you covered everything and in a couple weeks get to do it again!!

[GaryP]

Float the bioballs in some water and put a small PH in the refugium to maintain some flow. The bioballs need to stay wet. Without a lot of oxygen the bacteria will just shut down and wait to go back to work.

[jaded]

bad situation, but it sounds like your all over it!!! good job, good friend

[Kylaohhh]

Ok thanks guys. I'll get the balls into the fuge this morning!

[falcondob]

Hope everything works out for you. I told you the people here are great. They are like a great big safety net.