Crack and leak! ARGHHHHH!!!!!!

[guarda]

My back glass shattered last night because of the hole I drilled in it to install my chiller probe. 3 gallons on the floor before I could contain the leak. Looking for a new tank while I patch this one up. If I replace the white sand but use the same water and lr, will I get a new cycle? The sand is dirty and maybe I'll go with a protein skimmer this time. Will that help keep my sandbed whitey white?

 

[PRC]

Sorry to hear that. I would try to use the existing sand, it might be dirty but it's got alot of good stuff in it too. I don't use a protein skimmer so I don't know if it'll help keep your sand white. In order to keep your sand white, I would recommend trying to keep whatever goes in your tank, fish poop, food, etc. suspended in the water column with the use of powerheads, and then having enough Clean up Crew to take care of the rest. Is this the 14g tank? how many powerheads do you have? How many snails, crabs, etc.?

 

[yote]

That sux.
Any time you change tanks theres a chance it will cycle. But if you use all new sand and rinse the rock in saltwater before placing in the new tank,you have a bigger chance of no cycle.

 

[guarda]

yes, PRC, the biocube 14. I had 3 margarita snails, 4 tiny nassarius, and 2 cerith. Things that hitched or grew that I saw; 4 or 5 growing stomatellas, coupla asterinas, tons of barnacles and featherdusters, about 50 of those tiny spiral white spot-sized featherdusters on glass. I have the sand sitting in the bottom of the cracked tank with about a handful of water covering some of it. Is this ok? This is really frustrating but now maybe I can upgrade to a 24 or 28.

 

[PRC]

The clean up crew seems pretty good. When I swapped my tank, I kept the sand covered with some water, when the new tank was in place I scooped all of my existing sand out of the old and into the new with a dustpan. spread it around, and then When I filled up the new tank, I put a dinner plate to deflect the water pressure from my return pump filling up the tank, so that it didn't dust up the water too much. Used all new water in the new tank, within an hour all of my fish were in their new home. For the following consecutive 3 days I did water changes. I only lost a scooter blenny, and that's because I lost track of him when I was emptying the old tank. TUrned out he had buried himself in the sand.

 

[guarda]

I was thinking I had to use my old water bc of all the nutrients in it. Right now I have a 5 gallon bucket with all my lr, corals, and mandarin and a koralia 1 in it. I also have another 5 gallon bucket with just water. Is this a good deal for $350? FishTank 7/27/2010 - a set on Flickr

CADlights 12 gallon glass tank (with glass cover that I don’t use)
VorTech MP10 look this pump up, you will start to drool.
AquaC Remora Protein Skimmer
Elos Osmocontroller (auto top off system)
Stealth heater in the tank and I have another I use to warm up the weekly water change.
Digital thermometer
Surge protector with built in digital timer.
13 lbs of Fiji Live rock
About 2 lbs of live sand
False Perc clown fish, sexy shrimp, Snails and hermit crabs
button polups
Test kits and supplements with lots of extras.

 

[guarda]

And thanks for all the help so far. I am definitely more calmer now and am just trying to decide what I should do in terms of tanks.

 

[PRC]

It's a nice looking set up, I don't know how much the skimmer and lights go for, but it seems like a pretty good deal for a complete set up.

 

[Wes888]

make sure you have powerhead keep all the water moving or they would stink.

 

[guarda]

Yeah, put the koralia in the bucket last night. This is not fun. At least the mandarin is moving around now. He was motionless and laying on the same rock since I put him in. Still not eating. Hope he makes it ok.

 

[Bifferwine]

I would either use new sand or wash the old sand very thoroughly before re-using it. Re-using old sand without cleaning it out well seems to crash a lot of tanks, because there's usually so much crap trapped in it. You can prevent that from happening again by keeping the sand bed shallow -- less than 1 inch.

 

[guarda]

I know this is a personal choice but if you lived in a small apt in manhattan would you get the above setup for 300 or a new 105w jbj 28g for 210? I'm having an immensely difficult time choosing hehe

 

[guarda]

I'm gonna fix the 14g and give it to my brother

 

[reeffreak]

I was thinking I had to use my old water bc of all the nutrients in it. Right now I have a 5 gallon bucket with all my lr, corals, and mandarin and a koralia 1 in it. I also have another 5 gallon bucket with just water. Is this a good deal for $350? FishTank 7/27/2010 - a set on Flickr

CADlights 12 gallon glass tank (with glass cover that I don’t use)
VorTech MP10 look this pump up, you will start to drool.
AquaC Remora Protein Skimmer
Elos Osmocontroller (auto top off system)
Stealth heater in the tank and I have another I use to warm up the weekly water change.
Digital thermometer
Surge protector with built in digital timer.
13 lbs of Fiji Live rock
About 2 lbs of live sand
False Perc clown fish, sexy shrimp, Snails and hermit crabs
button polups
Test kits and supplements with lots of extras.

Definitely,the Vortech is $200 alone new.Cadlight makes very nice aquariums.