Hello Reef2Reef,
My name is Ben and I have been in the salt water hobby for roughly 10 years. I have enjoyed pico tanks for roughly 8 of those years do to the ease and uniqueness. Recently I had a wonderful 3.5 gallon cylinder tank setup. Everything was on the right track. Suddenly while cleaning the glass it cracked. Made me jump as I had just finished watching mantis shrimp videos lol. This all happened saturday July 20th.
I believe there was multiple causes. The tank was not of good quality. Purchased from PetSmart with bubbles and abnormalities. I have had tanks like that before with no issues and still seemed solid. Also do to the curve at the bottom and not being flat and wanting easier maintenance, I used aquaforest stone fix for a fake sand bed. I added sand and my rock structure to once it was mixed to allow to harden holding everything in place. I believe the mixture when hardening may have caused more pressure to the glass and the vibration with the magnet scrubber was the last straw. Only speculation.
I ended up throwing the tank and all into a 5 gallon bucket and filled the space between the aquarium and bucket with water to stabilize.
Currently I have just ordered from Marine Depot the Lifegard Aquatics Crystal 5.4 gallon aquarium. This will also require me to re aquascape which I was hoping I wouldn't have to. The equipment going in will be an Aqamai kps and the light is an Aqua Illuminations Prime HD. This will be the only equipment running the tank.
This tank is a bit of a rush to get done and hopefully stable as I am waiting on a special order that has taken me 2 years to find. It is still not a guarantee it'll be here any time soon or I'll get it.
So here is what my tank looks like now.
Next update will be when it arrives and I'll do a video unboxing. Never done a video unboxing so should be interesting as to how it turns out lol.
My name is Ben and I have been in the salt water hobby for roughly 10 years. I have enjoyed pico tanks for roughly 8 of those years do to the ease and uniqueness. Recently I had a wonderful 3.5 gallon cylinder tank setup. Everything was on the right track. Suddenly while cleaning the glass it cracked. Made me jump as I had just finished watching mantis shrimp videos lol. This all happened saturday July 20th.
I believe there was multiple causes. The tank was not of good quality. Purchased from PetSmart with bubbles and abnormalities. I have had tanks like that before with no issues and still seemed solid. Also do to the curve at the bottom and not being flat and wanting easier maintenance, I used aquaforest stone fix for a fake sand bed. I added sand and my rock structure to once it was mixed to allow to harden holding everything in place. I believe the mixture when hardening may have caused more pressure to the glass and the vibration with the magnet scrubber was the last straw. Only speculation.
I ended up throwing the tank and all into a 5 gallon bucket and filled the space between the aquarium and bucket with water to stabilize.
Currently I have just ordered from Marine Depot the Lifegard Aquatics Crystal 5.4 gallon aquarium. This will also require me to re aquascape which I was hoping I wouldn't have to. The equipment going in will be an Aqamai kps and the light is an Aqua Illuminations Prime HD. This will be the only equipment running the tank.
This tank is a bit of a rush to get done and hopefully stable as I am waiting on a special order that has taken me 2 years to find. It is still not a guarantee it'll be here any time soon or I'll get it.
So here is what my tank looks like now.
Next update will be when it arrives and I'll do a video unboxing. Never done a video unboxing so should be interesting as to how it turns out lol.