My NanoCube has a dang leak!! I'm so mad and I have no idea what to do about it other than just buy another one. My question is whether I can siphon out the water that is in the leaky tank and put it in the future tank and just put my live stuff in there like that or if I'm going to have to set it up somewhere else, cycle it like I did mine in the beginning and wait to bring the live things in there. The leak is kinda impossible to fix as it's not around an area where I can tell where it is to seal. Bummer! What can I do? Siphon or just restart the whole process and continue laying towels in the floor to soak up the water for a few weeks after I get the other one?
transfering everything from one tank to another will usually prevent a full cycle but a mini cycle is common.
In an emergency... you might try BIO-Spira http://www.instantocean.com/sites/Insta ... plash.html BIO-Spira prevents new-tank syndrome by accelerating the establishment of the bacteria necessary for successful biological filtration. In just minutes after adding BIO-Spira to your saltwater aquarium, you can introduce your fish with full confidence that they will not be exposed to dangerous levels of ammonia or nitrite, the culprits that cause new-tank syndrome. If I were in an emergency... to move all the water, rock & sand to a new tank... I think I might give this product a try... I have chatted with several people who swear by it... for a new tank setup, I never recommend it... best to let the tank cycle naturally, but in an emergency... I would consider this product...
I would consider just changing tanks the same as moving an existing tank to another location. It can be done, but I would suggest farming out your livestock with someone who has room and let your tank go through the mini cycle just to be safe. Do you have plans for a new tank? What are you looking for? Give me a call and I may be able to assist you. 501-329-6964 Norman
If you move everything, water, rock, substrate, and all else you won't have any cycle. That is where the bacteria are, what little is on the glass doesn't account for much of the system. I would put the animals in a rubbermaid tub though and transfer the water, rock, substrate and let the tank water clear for a few houirs and then add the animals.
The only thing I thought that might cause concern, was the stirring of the sand, thought it might could cause a mini-cycle to occur, that could hurt the fish, but not sure, may depend on the depth of the sand bed.
If he makes up some water, say 5 gals. and puts it in a container and matches the ph and salinity closely and adds a small air pump or power head to break the surface tension in the container or bucket. He then moves the rock and substrate and the tank water, there shouldn't be any cycle. Even if it is a deep sand bed and he hits a sulpher pocket it won't hurt anything. Just make sure not to rinse the substrate or add new uncured rock. Let the big detritus settle for a few hours and then you can add the animals back in the new tank even though the water may still be a little cloudy, it won't hurt anything. It is supposed to be a 27 nano, so I'm assuming we are talking about a small animal load and small fish. No big deal. I just reread the post and you don't say what size the nano is, my bad, but it is the same no matter.
Thanks to everybody who answered me.. and for the one guy.. I'm a girl. Haha. I saw it said "he" so I thought I'd clarify. It's all good, though. I decided to get a smaller aquarium (cuz they're cheaper) to set up quick and put all of my stuff in and then hopefully seal my 24 gallon nano with some silicone and maybe that'll stop the leak. I'm not sure exactly where it is but maybe I can just reseal the whole thing and catch it like that.. then I'll have 2 small aquariums and that'll be fine with me. Maybe a small one will be better for me since I'm new anyway. Just wanted to send a quick thank you to those who have been so fast to reply. I really appreciate everybody and am really happy that I found you guys on this website. Thank you all so much. You're all great. ~Emily
Wanted to share a tank thread I just read... related to changing tanks... very interesting... Tank Move That Did Not Go Well http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/gen ... -well.html
Something happened, and who knows what??? He didn't even run test to see where his tank was before adding things. Was it a ammonia spike or was it toxins?? He didn't test when things started dying, he just assumed it was toxins, from whatever source. Moving that big of a tank is different then moving a nano also. It well take alot longer for the water to settle the detritus load. Alot of corals don't like, nor well they tolerate high pollution from detritus, and depending on the fish and how bad the detritus was they could have died from eccessive detritus in the gills, I would have had some containers to put everything in until I had let the detritus settle with heater and some circulation in them, and in a tank that size that could have been a couple days. While this was going on he should have had a large sum of carbon running in the system and maybe some purigen in a tank that size, and letting the tank cirulate for a couple days while the detritus was settling would have greatly helped rid it of any gasses. A cycle would not have started that fast so something happened, most likely toxin. I would be wondering about letting the barrels soak in a bleach solution, I would have just wiped them out with RO/Di water and rinsed. In any case I still think his biggest mistake was rushing everything, trying to get things back up and running so as not to have their enviroment different for very long, and the bleach??????
