Couple Of Questions About Pressurized Co2

[Amunet]

Are you siphoning and bailing?.....
This happened to us, was horrible

What do you mean siphoning and bailing?
I haven't touched the tank yet. The crack hasn't gotten worse and no leaking yet, but I know that's probably not going to last.
Waiting to see what DH wants to do. He's still at work but should be home soon.

 

[kcharley]

Crap. I still can't come up with a good idea for the crack. Perhaps a post in emergencies or hardware/diy. There has to be someone who has dealt with a crack on a large tank successfully.

Greg

 

[waterdrop]

I mean if water is not yet coming out onto your floor you are lucky and have an opportunity to be re-homing to other containers and tranferring water. Once it starts gushing onto the floor its a lot worse! I was sitting in my dining room in the evening when I heard a water sound that was -no- coming from the icemaker, my whole family had to get into the act with buckets and towels. It -will- just start pouring into the room, don't be lulled...

~~waterdrop~~

 

[keenonfish]

As an emergency measure you could stick another piece of glass over the crack on the outside of the tank with silicone - might hold things a little longer and give you more time...

Have you any idea how it might have happened?

 

[kcharley]

As an emergency measure you could stick another piece of glass over the crack on the outside of the tank with silicone - might hold things a little longer and give you more time...

Have you any idea how it might have happened?

I was thinking of this but I've only tried it on a dry, empty tank. I was afraid to suggest it for fear the pressure of applying the patch might cause it to leak.

Amunet, you might try lowering the water level in the tank, that should relieve some of the pressure on the crack. Remember to keep your heater properly submerged so it doesn't crack. As WD says, be ready with buckets, coolers, whatever in case you have to act real fast.

Good luck.

Greg

 

[aaronnorth]

gill experienced this on his 5ft, he stuck another piece of glass over it i think, PM to see ow he did it.

 

[Amunet]

Haven't touched the tank yet, but about to go lower the water level.
The crack hasn't gotten any worse thankfull.

Even if I wanted to, can't put anything over the entire crack.
The bottom of the tank has a big black plastic around it, so you can't actually get to the bottom and it appears the crack goes all the way to the bottom or at least behind the black plastic.

I think we bought it with the crack. We did notice a small something there about a week after we bought it, but never even occured to us that it was a crack or something that would develop in to a crack.

I just really hope we will be able to get an exchange quickly.


I guess on a slightly positive.... I get to rescape the tank It'll probably still look pretty sucky, but oh well heh. Plus I get to clean off all the little black algae that's popping up and bugging the turd out of me.

 

[kcharley]

Hi Amunet,

Glad to see you're able to see a postive in the situation.

Good luck with the exchange.

Greg

 

[killudead]

Haven't touched the tank yet, but about to go lower the water level.
The crack hasn't gotten any worse thankfull.

Even if I wanted to, can't put anything over the entire crack.
The bottom of the tank has a big black plastic around it, so you can't actually get to the bottom and it appears the crack goes all the way to the bottom or at least behind the black plastic.

I think we bought it with the crack. We did notice a small something there about a week after we bought it, but never even occured to us that it was a crack or something that would develop in to a crack.

I just really hope we will be able to get an exchange quickly.


I guess on a slightly positive.... I get to rescape the tank It'll probably still look pretty sucky, but oh well heh. Plus I get to clean off all the little black algae that's popping up and bugging the turd out of me.

Well being that it is cracked. IMO, i would empty it asap and call to see for the exchange. Or maybe call first and they will say yes, you empty it clean it real quick, bring it in, exchange it and home with the hour. So in 4 hours you could basically get all your fish out of that little bucket and back into the tank.
I know you are supposed to wait 24 hours and all, but I never have, knock on wood, no issues..tank wise..
Good luck

 

[Amunet]

That's the problem, they don't have any more of the 125 in. So we'd have to wait for them to get the order in which could take a week or longer.
I'm trying to hold off as long as possible on moving the fish b/c I don't want to stress them. Specially the clowns and the BGK.
I'm gonna try to convince DH to call this other Petsmart that's about 20so miles away to see if they have any in and to see if we can take the tank there for the exchange.

 

[Amunet]

Tank is still holding up. HUbby going to the Petsmart tomorrow since he'll be over on that side of town for a class.
Looks like the tank might be getting BBA, Or maybe the staghorn from the other tank has gotten in to this one (from the plants that I transfered over)...
When I take the plants out... what should I do to clean them off? Should I just try to rub off and remove as much of the algae as possible? Or should I just snip off the leaves with it on it? Or what?

Really don't want to start up the new tank with algae infested plants

 

[Amunet]

BAH... starting to take the plants out now.
Looks like the algae is BBA. Kinda glad it's not staghorn (or blanket weed... whichever) , but the BBA is not coming off the plants either.
I put some algae fix stuff in to the container that the plants are going in to, but *shrugs* No idea if that'll do anything to fix it.
Def b/c of the CO2. Been messing with it. A few times, no bubbles were even coming out... just a big mess. Hopefully we'll be able to fix that.

Hubby went to the Petsmart today.. and they have a 125 in stock.
So tomorrow, he's going to call, they're gonna take the tank down and inspect it to make sure no cracks.. and if it's all good, then we'll be going to exchange it. So fish won't have to be in the storage bin for too long, and won't have to worry about the bacteria in the filter dying since it'll only be shut off for a couple of hours.

If it has cracks, they're gonna see if they can get an exchange for the one they have, BUT DH said that he was told they're not carrying that tank any longer or something so that may not happen.
If not, then we could exchange it for the 120 they have instead and then get money back for the difference.

Cross fingers that the 125 they have in stock is ok!

 

[keenonfish]

Looks like the algae is BBA. Kinda glad it's not staghorn (or blanket weed... whichever)

You shouldn't say that! Staghorn is quite polite and disappears when conditions are right BBA is truly horrible and can be quite persistent even in perfect conditions

Anyway I am glad you are finally getting somewhere!

 

[kcharley]

Hi Amunet,

Good to hear that the exchange looks like a go. Hopefully the new tank setup goes smoothly.

On the BBA, I have had success eradicating it two ways. The first is with Excel. I was getting it on a root and some anubias in my CO2 tank. I would pull the root and apply some Excel directly on the BBA, wait 5 or 10 minutes and put it back in the tank. After a few days of this, the BBA was gone. Excel will also take BBA off plant leaves BUT it also takes off the plant leaves. Now I just dose Excel 4 times a week in my non-CO2 tanks. It seems to be eliminating the BBA (I got some anubias at a bargain price due to BBA.)

The second method is CO2 with a lot of water current. My tanks with CO2 is 22 gallons. The filter claims a 220 gallon per hour turnover. Due to plant growth the tank was having circulation problems and BBA was starting in the still areas. I added a Koralia 1, 400 gallon per hour powerhead. (While this seems like a high turnover, I have heavy plant growth, a large root and a relatively tall tank which hinder circulation.) Circulation improved and the BBA died off.

HTH.

Greg

 

[waterdrop]

Hi Amunet,

Good to hear that the exchange looks like a go. Hopefully the new tank setup goes smoothly.

On the BBA, I have had success eradicating it two ways. The first is with Excel. I was getting it on a root and some anubias in my CO2 tank. I would pull the root and apply some Excel directly on the BBA, wait 5 or 10 minutes and put it back in the tank. After a few days of this, the BBA was gone. Excel will also take BBA off plant leaves BUT it also takes off the plant leaves. Now I just dose Excel 4 times a week in my non-CO2 tanks. It seems to be eliminating the BBA (I got some anubias at a bargain price due to BBA.)

The second method is CO2 with a lot of water current. My tanks with CO2 is 22 gallons. The filter claims a 220 gallon per hour turnover. Due to plant growth the tank was having circulation problems and BBA was starting in the still areas. I added a Koralia 1, 400 gallon per hour powerhead. (While this seems like a high turnover, I have heavy plant growth, a large root and a relatively tall tank which hinder circulation.) Circulation improved and the BBA died off.

HTH.

Greg

I've been thinking about getting both a pretty large piece of wood and a Koralia 1 and I keep wishing I could hide the Koralia behind the wood but I guess that would kind of defeat the purpose, wouldn't it?

There I was, so pleased with myself that the Hydor inline heater on the external cannister was keeping so much junk out of the tank but now the need to put more inside the tank looms ever larger...

Well, Amunet, I too am hoping the 125 at the other Petsmart will turn out to be well-built without cracks for you! Your case is so similar to mine in that I had to admit to myself when ours cracked that the thing that made the most sense was simply to get a straight-out replacement of the tank (and stand in our case) and not change other things because so much was already invested in growing the bacteria and having other stuff all matched to that tank shape and size. In my case there was an extra little irritation in that the replacement tank, the only one they could give me, didn't have a mirrored back glass like our original (which was our way of hoping to not worry about backgrounds at all) so I had to take a clear glass back and then worry about a background. The mirrored back one was not even "orderable" by them because of being a promotion, but then, as I just knew would happen, a fresh mirrored one appeared in the store, some weeks after we had already re-set-up with the clear-back one. Whenever I look at our now black background I wonder if I would have liked the mirrored one better, sigh!

~~waterdrop~~