Help! 40 breeder leaked all over floor

[hawk82]

I woke up at 2am to use the bathroom and heard the sound of water splashing. I went to look in my living room in horror and disbelief. Then I saw it, half the water gone! I think the stupid hob protein skimmer overflowed, because I dont see any cracks in the tank. But I had to drain the whole tank, to move it so I could put towels down and soak up the water all in the carpet. I put my fish in my 20 long, alone with most of the rock. What can i do about the sand? I put it all in a bucket and its just wet now, will it be ok? I dont want to kill my beneficial bacteria. Also all of rocks would not fit in the 20 so they are just in the bucket of water with the sand, will that keep them ok for a while? I have a fan running to dry and dry the carpet, I used about 6 towels and got most of what I could up. I am beyond bummed, my tank was just at one year and half old, and it was starting to settle in, all the ugly faze was gone. I worked so hard on it, I beat dinos, then hair algae, and finally got rid of cyno. I really dont want to have to go through all that again. I feel sick

 

[Mikedawg]

I would cover the bucket with Saran wrap, etc. - something air tight to minimize evaporation and keep sand and rocks wet.

Would also refill tank with tap water to ensure no leaks before putting back in place.

Good luck

 

[brandon429]

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

If you put back your tank clean as we do, then it runs like those do

 

[RC51]

I woke up at 2am to use the bathroom and heard the sound of water splashing. I went to look in my living room in horror and disbelief. Then I saw it, half the water gone! I think the stupid hob protein skimmer overflowed, because I dont see any cracks in the tank. But I had to drain the whole tank, to move it so I could put towels down and soak up the water all in the carpet. I put my fish in my 20 long, alone with most of the rock. What can i do about the sand? I put it all in a bucket and its just wet now, will it be ok? I dont want to kill my beneficial bacteria. Also all of rocks would not fit in the 20 so they are just in the bucket of water with the sand, will that keep them ok for a while? I have a fan running to dry and dry the carpet, I used about 6 towels and got most of what I could up. I am beyond bummed, my tank was just at one year and half old, and it was starting to settle in, all the ugly faze was gone. I worked so hard on it, I beat dinos, then hair algae, and finally got rid of cyno. I really dont want to have to go through all that again. I feel sick

Hope you get it sorted and fixed soon. Just make sure to move your important electronics out of the room because the salt will fry some of your electronics. My tank leaked and my other hobby is crypto mining and some of my really expensive GPUS were fried.

 

[DaneGer21]

Do you have a shop vac to suck up any water? You may even have to have the carpet shampooed. I couldn’t get the crust of the salt left behind when I had a spill.

Lots of fans, and a dehumidifier or two, will help

 

[hawk82]

Ugh.......

 

[Frogspon]

I don't want to bum you out but 6 towels doesn't have anywhere near the capacity to pull up 20 gallons of water from a carpet.

I would hire a professional carpet cleaning company to come out and do water removal.

Or you could go to pick up a SHOPVAC and do a make shift water pull up yourself, but be prepared to sit in one spot for hours.

Anything soaked in saltwater smells awful. you want it all out.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Dry area as you are. Now would be a good time also to take the tank outside and fill with FW and leak test to eliminate the tank as the source of leak itself.

 

[brandon429]

Your tank looks like every single example we collected above


side benefit, you are about to boost your tank in every way if you copy the big thread. A clean tank has open spaces to take on waste, you can feed corals better than you ever did in round two when it’s cleanly put back. In the invaded condition, we withhold feed out of fear of upsetting the invasion, the coming way will make your corals happy.

reasons people did your assembly above as a parted out approach: home moves, instant sandbed removals, dinos battles, cyano battles, substrate changes for different grain size, tank upgrades or dgs, and in the case of Jon M just to helpfully show on a five thousand dollar reef tank running just fine that four rip cleans done in one month made it shine, not wilt.


this is all said so you’ll feel better about the reef coming up~ and the hard work it’ll take to get there. if your storage and reassembly of the animals and surfaces is 100% free of detritus then you have a 100% chance of not recycling.

specifically don’t dose bottle bac at any step here. Don’t dose prime, don’t dose anything and soup up the system

Be free of detritus and inclusive of clean new water matching temp and salinity

that’s how to win. Don’t dose oxygen sapping bottle bac in this surprise run surgical job. Being clean in holding and transfer is specifically how you‘d plan for boosted oxygen.

 

[hawk82]

Your tank looks like every single example we collected above


side benefit, you are about to boost your tank in every way if you copy the big thread. A clean tank has open spaces to take on waste, you can feed corals better than you ever did in round two when it’s cleanly put back. In the invaded condition, we withhold feed out of fear of upsetting the invasion, the coming way will make your corals happy.

reasons people did your assembly above as a parted out approach: home moves, instant sandbed removals, dinos battles, cyano battles, substrate changes for different grain size, tank upgrades or dgs, and in the case of Jon M just to helpfully show on a five thousand dollar reef tank running just fine that four rip cleans done in one month made it shine, not wilt.


this is all said so you’ll feel better about the reef coming up~ and the hard work it’ll take to get there. if your storage and reassembly of the animals and surfaces is 100% free of detritus then you have a 100% chance of not recycling.

specifically don’t dose bottle bac at any step here. Don’t dose prime, don’t dose anything and soup up the system

Be free of detritus and inclusive of clean new water matching temp and salinity

that’s how to win. Don’t dose oxygen sapping bottle bac in this surprise run surgical job. Being clean in holding and transfer is specifically how you‘d plan for boosted oxygen.

So after I rinse the sand, and everything its ok to fill up with fresh saltwater as long and temp and salinity match? Just add my live rocks back and fish, and its good to go?

 

[anthonygf]

Sounds like you have a good plan to get it back in shape. So sorry this happened to you About 15 years ago I had a 75 gallon fresh water tank in my second floor condo, I was out of town when my wife called and was crying. All the water was on the floor leaking through the floor to the unit below. After cleaning everything up I found the bottom panel busted, I had just put hardwood flooring down when it was carpet. The subfloor was uneven and the wood settled uneven of course, causing the stand to bend in the middle shattering the glass. So I know how you feel, sometimes you learn the hard way. I hope you don't lose any of your pets.

 

[brandon429]

Yes and the key is total rinse in tap not partial
final rinse in ro to evacuate tap


the tendency is to under rinse and try and save bacteria but that is ironically the dangerous mode, zero detritus means skip cycle and before rocks go back in on clean sand swish twist the rocks in saltwater so they don’t bring in waste. Here’s an exact recent job we just finished

EMERGENCY - Substrate change

I went for the caribsea pink Fiji alive, was this a mistake? I know some places you can pick the grain size of that sand but it typically comes in a .5-1m which is a little small for my liking. I prefer the Reef grade by Carib sea. Perfect size grain for my universal needs, does not blow around...

www.reef2reef.com

copy exactly that



sand rinsed in tap then ro


rocks rinsed only in sw

 

[hawk82]

Im pretty sure my issue was the hob skimmer, I filled the tank yesterday with tap water and let it sit on on the porch all day, I didnt see any leaks. Needless to say I will be going skimmerless now. Not putting the hob skimmer back.

 

[Goaway]

Im pretty sure my issue was the hob skimmer, I filled the tank yesterday with tap water and let it sit on on the porch all day, I didnt see any leaks. Needless to say I will be going skimmerless now. Not putting the hob skimmer back.

Which brand is it? Some come with foam bubble traps, which get clogged and cause overflowing

 

[hawk82]

Which brand is it? Some come with foam bubble traps, which get clogged and cause overflowing

Reef Octopus bh100, but I had removed all the sponges.

 

[Chrisv.]

Ugh. So sorry. Don't give up.

 

[Tamberav]

Skimmerless tanks work fine... screw having that failure point.

I have rinsed my sand in tap and replaced it a few times, sometimes during moves or just because I felt like doing a rip clean. It causes no harm. Just be sure to get all the crud out. I usually rinse a small portion at a time. Trying to rinse it all at once just takes longer. Your rock will have plenty of beneficial bacteria.

In the end, you will be rid of some debris and it will be like your tank went through a big water change.

 

[hawk82]

Tank is restarted, been running about 3 days now. Thankful I didnt lose any fish, I think at most I lost some snails and hermits in the sand rinse.

 

[brandon429]

WOW

I'm shocked at the clarity of the final assembly, its laser clean


just to prepare for study in work example threads, you didnt use any bottle bac here is that correct

I specifically like how the calcification remains on the lower glass sides. it leaves some aging markers in place, coralline will specifically rebound right on those rigid attachment pads left concreted into place.

we want to be able to identify big jobs $$ with lots of life on the line like that above as using cycling bottle bac or not, the ones that compile work without using bottled bacteria are contributing to new cycling science. old cycling science would claim that not adding cycling bac is lunacy. if that's a bottle bac free job I'd list it on post one of our rinse thread as tank breakage intervention and CPR.

 

[hawk82]

WOW

I'm shocked at the clarity of the final assembly, its laser clean


just to prepare for study in work example threads, you didnt use any bottle bac here is that correct

I specifically like how the calcification remains on the lower glass sides. it leaves some aging markers in place, coralline will specifically rebound right on those rigid attachment pads left concreted into place.

we want to be able to identify big jobs $$ with lots of life on the line like that above as using cycling bottle bac or not, the ones that compile work without using bottled bacteria are contributing to new cycling science. old cycling science would claim that not adding cycling bac is lunacy. if that's a bottle bac free job I'd list it on post one of our rinse thread as tank breakage intervention and CPR.

No battle bac. After I rinsed the sand, I added that, then I filled the tank with fresh rodi added salt and let it mix and bring the temp up. When it was ready I just moved the rock and livestock over from the temporary tank.