A tale of 2 tanks

[Cheryl P.]

I need to vent a little to people who will feel my pain! 😏

On Friday, I started smelling a burned plastic smell and immediately took up a search to find the culprit. I found one of my tanks, a 65 gallon, had started a slow leak and an ill-placed surge protector was getting water in it. Luckily, the leak had just started and we were able to salvage everything without much of a mess.

A bit of good luck! We just bought 2 new 75 gallons on April 9th from Petco. They had substrate and water in them but I was waiting on an order from the Coop with supplies to finish. It hurt my soul a bit to break down the well planted and established 65 gallon but I managed to get all the plants, fish (2 discus and 3 angels), and decor nicely settled in the new 75.

I had planned on working on summer tubs this week but I was now resigned to resealing a 65 gallon tank. We had bought it used so I figured it was just one of those things.

Today, I was upstairs doing some maintenance and feeding fish when I heard my husband yelling. I rushed downstairs to find the brand new 75 gallon tank that I had just set up for my leak refugees absolutely hemorrhaging water out of the bottom.

W.T.F.

We scrambled to moved everyone again and do damage control. We had to bust out the shop vac and towels to keep the water from traveling too far. At least we still have the second (hopefully non-leaking) 75 gallon to use. Unfortunately, my smaller discus was injured in this move. I've put him in a hospital tank with salt for now but I don't think he's going to make it. I'm not sure, but I think a rock may have fallen on him while he was trying to hide. 😔

While doing a post mortem on the 75 gallon I found a 10 inch slit down the middle of the silicone on the bottom of the tank. I'm not even sure how that happens! I think it was only easily visible because some of the black gravel got stuck in it. The tank should be easy to take back to Petco and swap it out for another but to add insult to injury, we don't have a car that can fit the tank. We originally rented a truck to pick up the 2 we bought. I'm hoping a friend can help us out with transport.

I am so grateful that this happened while my husband was home. He's due to fly out for work tomorrow. It would have been so much worse if I had to do this all by myself! 

[Colu]

Sorry hear that I must be just lucky I've never had a tank leak in over twenty years of keeping fish fingers crossed your discus pulls though