Disaster Fairy......

[LadyB]

A7 posted this on another site that we frequent. M.A.R.S.H. which stands for Marine Aquarium and Reef Society of Houston. It was a rough night. Kinda depressing to look and not see the tank.

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Well it appears that the Marine Aquatics Disaster Fairy has decide to visit my little portion of the sea. Fortunately enough she decided to only give me a glancing blow and not an all out assault.

Last night I did a water change on all the tanks in the house (2 marine, 3 freshwater). I was feeling pretty good about getting them all done in a timely manner and was doing an inspection of my sump and all its little inhabitants. I love to watch the pods run through the micro algae for some reason. I was especially happy about finding what I believe to be a Stomatella snail, so I grabbed the camera and began trying to get pictures of the little guy. Laying on the floor I happened to look up through the opening in the stand where the drain and return lines run, and my heart sank instantly. There, running from the return line bulkhead to the back of the tank was this dark grey line. I ran a fingernail across and sure enough, it feels like a crack…

So, here it is 10:00 at night, I have a cracked tank with 50 some odd gallons of water, 100 plus pounds of rock, and numerous fish, corals, and invertebrates in it… This can’t be good. Taking inventory of what we had laying around the wife and I decided it was time for just about everyone to make a move to a new home. We had a “spare” 20g with nothing in it (it’s waiting for a friend of mine to pick it up), a 29 gallon freshwater with two Tiger Barbs, and three Brevis (don’t ask) in it, a 30 gallon marine with a Green Spotted Puffer in it, and a cracked 62 gallon. The 29 gallon had its inhabitants moved to the 20 along with their rocks, shells, and water, then was scrubbed and rinsed out. Once I was satisfied that the 29 gallon was ready, all the sand, rock, water, and puffer was moved from the 30 gallon. Then the process of removing the corals and LR from the 62 began. The corals were pulled out and put into a Rubbermaid container with water drained from the 62, and then the LR was pulled out and inspected. One piece with an Aptaisia and a few pieces with Bubble algae were put to the side and the rest were put in 5 gallon buckets. With the help of a large clear plastic cup, the fish and inverts were moved in with the corals. Afterwards about half the sand was moved to the 30 gallon, as were the corals, rock, and fairly freaked out critters. The LR was split between the 30 and the 29 (fortunately the 30 only had about 30 pounds of rock to start with). The rest of the water was drained from the 62 and the remaining sand is drying out (and dying) quickly.

So after finishing all the moves at 3:00 in the morning, the Puffer is in with more rock then he’s ever seen before and is loving life, and the rest of my critters are freaked out about their world being completely changed over. So far the only loss has been my beautiful BTA that managed to move into my Sieo 820 overnight. I was concerned that might happen, but never thought to reduce the flow on it. If that turns out to be the only loss I guess I’ll consider myself lucky. Sad

Sorry for the long post, but I just had to vent.

[{OF}Blong]

ouch that sucks. sorry this must have been one of those posts I missed because wildflower using my account instead of hers.