Emergency! !!

reefnewb1982

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Help I woke up today to find my tank leakng its a 120 gallon with 2 tangs a goby and a damsel 3 shrimp and about 15 coral what do I do. I was thinking of draining the tank and putting the fish and coral in a makeshift quarantine tank but what about the 129 lbs of live sand.. if I drain the tank and keep all the water will I still have to cycle again
 
First make sure you have your livestock situated for several days to a week in the makeshift QT, provide as much of your filtration to it as possible, do not forget about heat. Be prepared to provide proper light on after day 3 (little to no light during the first 3 days should not have any serious impacts to your corals, and will help to keep fish stress down.

After that...

Rope Buckets, you can get a couple of the large ones, wash them out well, wash again with vinegar, rinse with RO/DI and then fill them with the sand. Keep the sand with water over it, cover the bucket to try and minimize evaporation, and cross your fingers!

Hopefully your tank fix will not take long but regardless you are going to minimally have a couple of mini cycles. Order some Dr Tim's One and Only, for when you start your tank back up.

You are also probably going to need some (1-2) extra heaters and power heads (1-2). Your current ones will be needed to keep your livestock alive, and once you have your tank fixed all that sand and water in you will need to warm it back up.

Once you have your tank back up with the sand and water and it is up to temp, I recommend you drip acclimate your makeshift QT with the DT, for several hours. Since the volumes of water are not small it is less drip and more lite controlled stream, with some process for taking excess water from the QT and putting it in to the DT. In the end you want them to blend 100% before moving your livestock back.

After that transfer everything back and keep your light levels really low for the first 12 hours before gently bringing them back up.

Good luck and let us know how you manage.
 
if you keep as much of the water, rock, and sand that you have aerated and heated, you probably can avoid a major cycle. you'll want to prioritize a place to keep your livestock that is heated and aerated.
 
My friend is giving me his 55 tomorrow morning to hold my fish but im iffy about it due to the gact he said it had something in itthat killed hisv ffreshwater fish anything I can do to make sure whatever it is wont kill mine and if I use that tank what do I do for filtration its not drilled or anything
 
I would wash it out very, very well - clean it with vinegar at least. If you move over a good portion of live rock, a powerhead or two, your tank's water, and heater - the live rock will provide the bulk of your filtration while you fix the existing tank or get a new one, whichever direction you go. I would try to minimize the amount of time that will be needed to take care of that as best you can.
 
I can't believe this came up tonight. I'm going through the same thing in my classroom with my 120 DT. I checked on the tank during the summer but didn't do my normal cleaning. This week I noticed a salt drip line down the front left side if the tank. Now I'm looking for a replacement tank because there is no way I can store all living creatures in temp housing in my classroom for this long. We put wood on front and back and clamped them in place to gain a little more time. Not pretty. But it's working.
 
Update : my wife doesn't want me to let the guy do the reseal and wants me to do it $#!@* so im taking her up on the task and starting tonight im still waiting for my friend to let me pick up that 55
 
So this is what im gonna do as soon as I get that 55 in the house ..
1. take all the live rock out of the tank
2. Remove 55 gallons of water from display tank and add it to holding tank
3. Remove sand from display tank and add it the holding tank
4. Add the live rock to holding tank
5. Start running hob filter with carbon ? As well as skimmer and gfo phosphate reactor o ya and heater

6. Add livestock fish and coral and inverts
 
7. Test parameters and cross my fingers and hope what my newb rear is right and nothing dies cause my wife and daughter will kill me
 
I would buy a new 120g for peace of mind. After your transfer is complete add Microb-lift Nite out II. This will prevent ammonia/nitrite spikes. You should be fine with all the same live rock though.
 
it sounds like a good initial plan until you can reseal your tank. Resealing a tank is not an easy or quick thing when doing it for the first time. Make sure the 55 is cleaned out prior to doing this. The HOB filter should add enough aeration and offer some filtration along with your LR. What are you going to do with your other water? Did you get any large containers to keep as much water as possible in?
 

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