Emergency tank change

[IR_Crayoneater]

So I coach football and got home from practice tonight, took a peek at my tank and realized I was missing about 10 gallons of water. I started checking the filters and everything to make sure nothing was leaking out of there and spotted a steady stream of water coming from the front/left underside of the tank. I monitored the water level for 10 minutes and realized I was losing about 1/16th of an inch every 10 minutes. I had no back up tank, luckily a friend of my nephews works at a fish store and hooked me up with a new 55 gallon tank after closing. I am 90% sure a seal busted because I cannot see any cracked glass, I bought this tank used 3 months ago to upgrade from a 30 to a 55gal.

I had 5, 5 gallon buckets that are strictly used for the fish tank only and get dried out and put in a sealed bag when not in use. So as soon as I got done picking up the tank I siphoned out 25 gallons of water into these buckets, set up a heater in 2 of them and my 55gal filter in one and 70gal filter in the other, placed all my mollies, snails and platys in one bucket then my loaches, corys and pleco in the other bucket. Dropped all my plants in a third bucket and let the drift wood sit out on paper towels on the counter.

My wife cleaned out the new tank with a solution of white vinegar and water, dried it, then straight clean tap water and dried it again till the smell of vinegar was gone. I drained the rest of the water and previously I had 4" of gravel in the tank that was leaking, I only removed 2" of gravel from it, mixed between the top and bottom layers and placed it into the new tank, mainly because I was preparing to switch from the Eco-Complete I have to sand after recommendations from a previous posting, plus I figured it will make the change quicker in the future and because I didnt want to leave all my fish in those buckets for an extended period of time while I tried to transfer all my gravel.

Once I got the 2" of gravel transferred, I stuck my airstone into the tank, I poured all the water from the two buckets with just straight old tank water into the tank, then started filling up those two with tap water, treating with prime and dumping it into the tank. I replanted everything, removed the heater from my bottom feeder bucket, turned it up to get the tank temperature adjusted quickly, removed the filter from that bucket and set it back up and then placed those fish back into the tank and dumped that water back in. I then took the other bucket, placed fish back into the tank, dumped the water into the tank, reset the filter back up ( I run a dual filter setup) and topped the tank off with new water.

In all I did probably a 60% "water change" from this. The first bucket I put 1 table spoon and half a teaspoon of aquarium salt in, I KNOW I KNOW its freshwater, but one of the fish got injured running from my net as I was getting them into the bucket so I took a precaution, its still well below recommended dosage. I then added 5 capfuls of quickstart which is 25ml, the recommended dosage for my tank. In total it took 3 hours from start to finish. I have been monitoring the fish for an hour and everyone "seems" ok right now. I decided not to feed them tonight in case of a crash or levels being off. I did not test the water yet because I want to let everything settle before hand.

In this entire process is there anything I should of done differently ? Is there anything I need to be watching for besides my tank crashing and sickness from stress ? Is there anything else I can do now to help my fish after this fiasco and prevent any deaths?

*Note* Yellow bucket in the picture I grabbed from my garage to siphon the rest of the water out and dump it outside, once I filled my 5 red ones up with the old tank water. The water in the yellow bucket was never dumped back into the tank.

 

[Jan Cavalieri]

I have a bucket system at my house as well and several times have used them as a "safe house" during an emergency - I usually just add a bubble stone to keep O2 levels high. I also have 4 -20 gallon BRUTE trash cans on wheels to transport large amount of water instead of using buckets. BRUTE is food safe and doesn't leach any chemicals out. Bigger ones are too easy to tip over. So when we do a water change we siphon the water into the "dirty" trash can and then dump it and when we replace the water we treat the water in the "clean" trash can and use a small bucket with conditioner (and in my case a PH neutralizer because I have VERY HIGH PH of 9.4 tap water) to add the water back in (the 20 gallon is far to heavy to lift plus the velocity of the water would probably kill the fish - we've accidentally done that by adding water too fast from a bucket.

In my opinion the one thing you did wrong was wash the new tank with vinegar. In fact with a new tank, just get some damp paper towels and wipe down the inside of the tank - no need to "clean it". In those cases where you have to clean a tank then I would clean it with a weak bleach solution believe it or not! It's far more effective than vinegar and vinegar residue can actually be fatal to some fish. Vinegar is very acidic (2-3 on the PH scale) and few fish can handle a solution that acidic if you hadn't rinsed out the tank so well and as organized as you are I suspect you rinsed your vinegar cleaned tank very well but I would take a PH reading right now and see what it says. I assume you know the PH levels required by your fish but most tropical fish require a PH of 6.5 to 7.5 with Cichlids preferring a PH of 8.0. If the PH is very low, put the fish back in the bucket, keep the filtering material and hope the vinegar didn't kill it and go get a PH neutralizer - like magic it will convert any water into a PH around 7.0 I found it takes a little more powder premixed in the new tank water than the instructions say or you're PH will be a little off. There are also chemicals PHup and PHdown made by API but it's hard to guess how much to use, especially in a large tank - but often it's your only choice.

Other than that I can't think of anything you did wrong - I really hope you didn't ruin your floors or this was a basement set up. I worry so much about warping my hardwoods (but at least I don't have carpet). We (actually my assistant since I'm disabled) puts towels around EVERYTHING to protect the floors. And whenever we get a new tank and stand I place 4 layers of vinyl tablecloth under the tank and over the edge of the stand or the stand will start peeling and warping.



As an aside related to vinegar vs bleach. I am on oxygen 24/7 and I also use a nebulizer compressor which takes liquid drugs and vaporizes it (if you ever have known somebody with asthma you may have seen one of these) I have end-stage COPD and severe asthma, for the last 15 yrs they've been telling me I have about a 5 yr life expectancy LOL. I do have everything delivered, and all outside work done. I rarely drive except to Dr's appointment (most of our buildings here have lovely free valet parking or I would struggle to walk very far). Anyway - a LONG time ago the instructions for cleaning and sterilizing your nebulizer equipment was to let it sit for 20 minutes in a pretty highly concentrated vinegar solution. What they discovered a few years ago is that vinegar doesn't kill the nastiest bugs (like pneumonia for example) and just in general is a poor sterilizer. You can instead place your equipment in a bleach solution for about 15 minutes and rinse it very well and it kills EVERYTHING. I think that's one the reason bleach solutions are more recommended for severely damaged fish tanks than vinegar solutions - that don't do much other than smell bad and mess up your PH. Bleach sounds dangerous but if you rinse until the odor is gone you'll be OK.

Best of luck to you. You sound like a very organized person so I'm sure everything will come out alright. (oh my other 2 Brute trashcans will be for storing saltwater and pure water from my RO/DI system and soon as I have time to focus on that large project) It will share the same "dirty" Brute trashcan we use with the freshwater fish.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Wow! Hey man, you got through all of our worst nightmare! I think the only scenario worse than a leaking tank is a shattered glass panel.

You got through it! And did a great job, three hours in an emergency like this is swift.

I don't think you did anything wrong! The only tip I'd give for the future/for others reading along is to cover the buckets the fish are in next time. An old towel, piece of cardboard, something. Prevent jumpers, and will make it dark for them and help reduce stress.

For the record too, I would have used vinegar to clean the new tank as well. Never know if any cleaning chemicals, hand sanitiser or perfumes may have contaminated the tank while in the store or transported, and vinegar is easy to rinse and dilutes easily. Weak bleach solutions can be used to clean and disinfect, I've used those too - but I wouldn't in a case like this, where you need to move fish in right away, and cannot allow the tank to air dry after bleaching (and allow the bleach to air off). If vinegar residue is a risk, bleach residue is far far worse!!

I also wouldn't mess around with your pH and use a load of pH adjusting products unless you really have to. @Jan Cavalieri has unusually high tap water pH, and needs to adjust hers, understandably. But for most of us, it's not worth the risk to mess with it. Wild swings in pH are much worse for fish than a stable one, and if your tap water pH is okay, then better to stay with it than try to adjust it whenever you do a water change, and even more so in an emergency situation like this.

So good call mate, I think you handled it pretty well! Awesome that the store was able to sort a tank for you after hours. Definitely owe them a few drinks

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Awww man that is definitely one of the biggest fears of anyone who owns a fishtank.

Sounds like you did everything perfectly though. Especially getting your filters running again as soon as possible and making sure to match temperatures when you get the new tank running. These are the two things that are normally missed in the panic during these situations and they are the two things that will cause the most problems.

Aquarium salt has its uses for treatment and I actually prefer it over some alternatives. I would just say be careful when using it with loaches though. They don't have scales and generally don't do well with adding salt. I think this is a fairly small dose though so probably not a big deal.

Anyway great job on the recovery! The fish should all be fine its not much more different then a big water change.

The only thing I would have done differently is used it as a good excuse to upgrade to a bigger tank

"Sorry Love, we have to replace this tank right now and I can only get this 100G tank. Looks like we are going to have to go for it, I mean what are you going to do, just let all these fish die?"

Edit:
Also don't dump the old tank. If the glass is sound you can take it all apart, get some aquarium silicone and rebuild it. Then you scored a nice second tank out of the ordeal.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

The only thing I would have done differently is used it as a good excuse to upgrade to a bigger tank

"Sorry Love, we have to replace this tank right now and I can only get this 100G tank. Looks like we are going to have to go for it, I mean what are you going to do, just let all these fish die?"

Oooohhh, sneaky! I love it.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Is there anything I need to be watching for besides my tank crashing and sickness from stress ? Is there anything else I can do now to help my fish after this fiasco and prevent any deaths?

Oooh, something I forgot to mention, do extra testing over the next days/week or so. Since our beneficial bacteria (BB) live on the hard surfaces in our tanks as well as in the filters, there could be a spike in ammonia or nitrites as a result of having to switch to a clean tank, and losing most of the substrate. So I'd watch carefully for that, doing water changes as needed if levels ever go above zero.

Hopefully between the two filters and you feeding lightly, it won't happen, but better to be prepared just in case! If it does happen, it'll only take a week or so for the BB colonies to have grown back to their original sizes, so just ride it out! It's good that you have Prime, since that binds ammonia and nitrites and can help keep the tank stable between the daily water changes.

Fingers crossed for you, keep us updated!

 

[noobfish]

Well done. Really lucked out with the connection at the pet shop! Makes me realize I need to up my bucket stash for such an unfortunate circumstance.

 

[Byron]

As you asked for my comments, I would have washed the new tank with warm water. No need for vinegar or whatever if it is new. And I would not have used salt, it has no real benefit and the additional stress to all the fish from salt is something to avoid when they are already under some level of stress. Keep a close eye out for ich over the next week or so. And if it does appear, heat only is the best cure.

Provided the parameters (GH, pH and temperature) between fresh water and tank water were basically the same, I would have gone with fresh water and not bothered about the old water, though one way to get the fish from the bucket to the new tank might have been just pouring them out gently with the bucket water into the new tank. Avoids another netting which is very stressful.

 

[IR_Crayoneater]

I have a bucket system at my house as well and several times have used them as a "safe house" during an emergency - I usually just add a bubble stone to keep O2 levels high. I also have 4 -20 gallon BRUTE trash cans on wheels to transport large amount of water instead of using buckets. BRUTE is food safe and doesn't leach any chemicals out. Bigger ones are too easy to tip over. So when we do a water change we siphon the water into the "dirty" trash can and then dump it and when we replace the water we treat the water in the "clean" trash can and use a small bucket with conditioner (and in my case a PH neutralizer because I have VERY HIGH PH of 9.4 tap water) to add the water back in (the 20 gallon is far to heavy to lift plus the velocity of the water would probably kill the fish - we've accidentally done that by adding water too fast from a bucket.

In my opinion the one thing you did wrong was wash the new tank with vinegar. In fact with a new tank, just get some damp paper towels and wipe down the inside of the tank - no need to "clean it". In those cases where you have to clean a tank then I would clean it with a weak bleach solution believe it or not! It's far more effective than vinegar and vinegar residue can actually be fatal to some fish. Vinegar is very acidic (2-3 on the PH scale) and few fish can handle a solution that acidic if you hadn't rinsed out the tank so well and as organized as you are I suspect you rinsed your vinegar cleaned tank very well but I would take a PH reading right now and see what it says. I assume you know the PH levels required by your fish but most tropical fish require a PH of 6.5 to 7.5 with Cichlids preferring a PH of 8.0. If the PH is very low, put the fish back in the bucket, keep the filtering material and hope the vinegar didn't kill it and go get a PH neutralizer - like magic it will convert any water into a PH around 7.0 I found it takes a little more powder premixed in the new tank water than the instructions say or you're PH will be a little off. There are also chemicals PHup and PHdown made by API but it's hard to guess how much to use, especially in a large tank - but often it's your only choice.

Other than that I can't think of anything you did wrong - I really hope you didn't ruin your floors or this was a basement set up. I worry so much about warping my hardwoods (but at least I don't have carpet). We (actually my assistant since I'm disabled) puts towels around EVERYTHING to protect the floors. And whenever we get a new tank and stand I place 4 layers of vinyl tablecloth under the tank and over the edge of the stand or the stand will start peeling and warping.



As an aside related to vinegar vs bleach. I am on oxygen 24/7 and I also use a nebulizer compressor which takes liquid drugs and vaporizes it (if you ever have known somebody with asthma you may have seen one of these) I have end-stage COPD and severe asthma, for the last 15 yrs they've been telling me I have about a 5 yr life expectancy LOL. I do have everything delivered, and all outside work done. I rarely drive except to Dr's appointment (most of our buildings here have lovely free valet parking or I would struggle to walk very far). Anyway - a LONG time ago the instructions for cleaning and sterilizing your nebulizer equipment was to let it sit for 20 minutes in a pretty highly concentrated vinegar solution. What they discovered a few years ago is that vinegar doesn't kill the nastiest bugs (like pneumonia for example) and just in general is a poor sterilizer. You can instead place your equipment in a bleach solution for about 15 minutes and rinse it very well and it kills EVERYTHING. I think that's one the reason bleach solutions are more recommended for severely damaged fish tanks than vinegar solutions - that don't do much other than smell bad and mess up your PH. Bleach sounds dangerous but if you rinse until the odor is gone you'll be OK.

Best of luck to you. You sound like a very organized person so I'm sure everything will come out alright. (oh my other 2 Brute trashcans will be for storing saltwater and pure water from my RO/DI system and soon as I have time to focus on that large project) It will share the same "dirty" Brute trashcan we use with the freshwater fish.

Anytime I use vinegar I wash it with clean water really well before putting it in the tank or in this case water into the tank. I have always tried avoiding bleach on anything, mainly because I must have a slight allergy to it because my hands will burn for a few days after I have used it. I am going to invest in something better to move water with. LUCKILY my house is old and the floor was already warped there, which is why I chose to place the tank in that spot in case anything like this happened lol it sits above two main supports also.

I am getting ready to head out to have two of my local stores test the water and then I am going to do the same when I get home to make sure everything is gravy. I checked on everyone this morning and so far we are doing well, so I am going to be checking the parameters everyday for the next week or 2.

 

[IR_Crayoneater]

As you asked for my comments, I would have washed the new tank with warm water. No need for vinegar or whatever if it is new. And I would not have used salt, it has no real benefit and the additional stress to all the fish from salt is something to avoid when they are already under some level of stress. Keep a close eye out for ich over the next week or so. And if it does appear, heat only is the best cure.

Provided the parameters (GH, pH and temperature) between fresh water and tank water were basically the same, I would have gone with fresh water and not bothered about the old water, though one way to get the fish from the bucket to the new tank might have been just pouring them out gently with the bucket water into the new tank. Avoids another netting which is very stressful.

Ich is the biggest one I am worried about right now, my corys looked like they had some white spots on them last night but I couldn't tell if it was debris from the water being distrubed or beginning of ich (attached are pictures I snapped of them late last night). After the fiasco of netting them, I did pour the water slowly from the bucket to put them back in after I got the water level almost to full so they didnt drop as far.

The GH is definitely not the same, I am getting ready to test it and have the store test it. My tap water is really soft so I'm a little worried about that right now.

 

[IR_Crayoneater]

Wow! Hey man, you got through all of our worst nightmare! I think the only scenario worse than a leaking tank is a shattered glass panel.

You got through it! And did a great job, three hours in an emergency like this is swift.

I don't think you did anything wrong! The only tip I'd give for the future/for others reading along is to cover the buckets the fish are in next time. An old towel, piece of cardboard, something. Prevent jumpers, and will make it dark for them and help reduce stress.

For the record too, I would have used vinegar to clean the new tank as well. Never know if any cleaning chemicals, hand sanitiser or perfumes may have contaminated the tank while in the store or transported, and vinegar is easy to rinse and dilutes easily. Weak bleach solutions can be used to clean and disinfect, I've used those too - but I wouldn't in a case like this, where you need to move fish in right away, and cannot allow the tank to air dry after bleaching (and allow the bleach to air off). If vinegar residue is a risk, bleach residue is far far worse!!

I also wouldn't mess around with your pH and use a load of pH adjusting products unless you really have to. @Jan Cavalieri has unusually high tap water pH, and needs to adjust hers, understandably. But for most of us, it's not worth the risk to mess with it. Wild swings in pH are much worse for fish than a stable one, and if your tap water pH is okay, then better to stay with it than try to adjust it whenever you do a water change, and even more so in an emergency situation like this.

So good call mate, I think you handled it pretty well! Awesome that the store was able to sort a tank for you after hours. Definitely owe them a few drinks

My PH for my tap water is pretty stable at 7.4-7.6, I usually try to avoid any extra chemicals in the tank and adjust PH with coral, baking soda etc. Yea I definitely owe them drinks or something lol my nephew has been friends of the family since they were in highschool and I coached them in wrestling so I got the hook up last night lol

 

[IR_Crayoneater]

Awww man that is definitely one of the biggest fears of anyone who owns a fishtank.

Sounds like you did everything perfectly though. Especially getting your filters running again as soon as possible and making sure to match temperatures when you get the new tank running. These are the two things that are normally missed in the panic during these situations and they are the two things that will cause the most problems.

Aquarium salt has its uses for treatment and I actually prefer it over some alternatives. I would just say be careful when using it with loaches though. They don't have scales and generally don't do well with adding salt. I think this is a fairly small dose though so probably not a big deal.

Anyway great job on the recovery! The fish should all be fine its not much more different then a big water change.

The only thing I would have done differently is used it as a good excuse to upgrade to a bigger tank

"Sorry Love, we have to replace this tank right now and I can only get this 100G tank. Looks like we are going to have to go for it, I mean what are you going to do, just let all these fish die?"

Edit:
Also don't dump the old tank. If the glass is sound you can take it all apart, get some aquarium silicone and rebuild it. Then you scored a nice second tank out of the ordeal.

I tried that, the wife said I can sleep with the fish in that case, she is Italian, kind of got a little scared lol. I am going to keep this old tank, me and my neighbor checked it out last night and didnt see any cracked glass so were going to try and repair it. When my wife originally bought the tank, I had been asking for a knife forge for months, maybe next time she will jsut get the forge lol

 

[xxBarneyxx]

I tried that, the wife said I can sleep with the fish in that case, she is Italian, kind of got a little scared lol. I am going to keep this old tank, me and my neighbor checked it out last night and didnt see any cracked glass so were going to try and repair it. When my wife originally bought the tank, I had been asking for a knife forge for months, maybe next time she will jsut get the forge lol

Lol.

Also I just go a 3 burner forge and new anvil for my 40th back in July to replace my DIY charcoal forge and railroad track anvil. Not had chance to use it yet though as I need to get some propane and refractory to line it with.

 

[IR_Crayoneater]

So I just tested the water.

PARAMATERS:
Ph-7.4
Ammonia-.5-1ppm
Nitrite-0
Nitrate-20-40 ppm

The ammonia has me worried, so I am going to dose with quickstart again and do another water change tonight. Im hoping it spiked just because of stirring up all the gravel because its normally always 0. I may have busted a element in my heater last night. I typically have the water between 80 and 81, its set at 82 right now and the water is only 78 degrees, its actually dropped from last night where it was around 80. I have fans running to dry out the floor, so I shut them off just in case they are making my thermometer read wrong and I bought a new thermometer in case the one I have is screwed up before I spend money on a new heater.

 

[Jan Cavalieri]

There isn't any chance a fish died (while hiding) after moving it to the new tank (I'm thinking loach)? A dead fish will increase ammonia levels very fast - by tomorrow it could be double that amount if the dead fish hasn't been removed. I can't think of any other explanation. Any leftover vinegar solution would have lowered your PH so I can only think of a dead fish causing that level of ammonia. Another possibility is that your tap water has Ammonia in it. I recently checked my city's water annual report and there was a significant amount of Ammonia listed in our drinking water! You can go to your City website and search for the water department and their Annual report - it will show you all the chemicals in your tap water as well as the average PH, the average Hardness and average Alkalinity. There may be some clues there. In the meantime some water conditioners (such as prime) will deactivate Ammonia and Nitrite levels for almost 48 hours. Now any test strip or other type of testing you may use will still show the ammonia and nitrites are still THERE - because they are still there - just in a deactivated form.

I still stand by my advise to not bother to clean a new tank with any chemicals, just wipe it down with damp paper towels. Now obviously if you see a lot of dirt on those paper towels you'll want to rinse the tank out with warm water and dry it well and wipe it down again, You mentioned using a vinegar solution and a couple more people are still using vinegar when it is USELESS - in fact it just makes the tank more of a danger. Bleach is used when you suspect some type of disease was present that killed fish in the past (because it kills everything) I would also use a very dilute bleach solution on a used tank since you don't know what kink of bacteria you may have. I don't know why people are so scared of bleach - ammonia isn't much better smelling and can cause a rash or an asthma attack just like bleach In your case, with the new tank - all you had to fear is dust and by wiping it out with a damp paper towel is good enough to get rid of the dust in the new tank. I'm not aware of any dangerous components used during manufacturing a tank that would require rinsing with vinegar or bleach - just get rid of the dust. The same goes if you find the spot when the old tank leaked - after it's repaired, wipe it out with a damp cloth - no chemicals are necessary.