I am probably just posting to hear myself think in a rough situation this morning, but my girlfriend just woke me up because she literally heard the fish tank start leaking while she was getting ready for work.
This is a Top Fin 55 gallon marine tank purchased at PetSmart in June. So yes, it is 5 months old. It has been in a corner of my home since, not abused or banged around, and since my last tank sprung a sudden leak, I have been babying this one as far as cleaning it, etc.
The ironic thing is, the leak happened around the same spot as it did in the previous identical make.model tank, 3/4 of the way down on the front right seam (it is not a seamless corner tank, 2 joins in the front, which I realize is not as ideal as a curved glass front).
I realize that Top Fin is considered the lowest of the low when it comes to aquariums, but still, this is unusual right? My last Top Din tank from Petsmart (identical 55 hex corner tank) lasted 10 years and that was among heavy abuse cleaning the seams with a scrub brush.
Anyway, the sprung leak is so big it's spraying in an arc around 2 feet away from the tank and has already leaked about 4 inches of water in an hour which I am catching in a giant plastic tub to re-use.
At this rate I'm going to guess it will leak 30 gallons down to the leak spot in 5 hours. So this is no small leak, and it happened out of the blue just like that.
What I'm wondering I guess, other than the low quality tank (which IMHO still shouldn't do something like that, I don't care how cheap the tank is), is there anything else I could be missing here? I haven't hit the tank seams with anything, bumped rock into it...The fish inside are the same fish I had living in the last tank for 10 years, only one larger fish (foxface rabbitfish) and the others small -- I do fill the tank almost to the top but again did that with the last one too and that took 10 years to leak.
My plan is to go to PetSmart and get a replacement and do a total fish/water/gravel/rock swap, and bring them back the defective, not what I planned for my Tuesday, but now I'm feeling paranoid that it will just happen again.
Just bad luck? I'm just beside myself because my last tank sprung the leak in June when I got this new one, this one took only 5 months to do the exact same thing.
This is a Top Fin 55 gallon marine tank purchased at PetSmart in June. So yes, it is 5 months old. It has been in a corner of my home since, not abused or banged around, and since my last tank sprung a sudden leak, I have been babying this one as far as cleaning it, etc.
The ironic thing is, the leak happened around the same spot as it did in the previous identical make.model tank, 3/4 of the way down on the front right seam (it is not a seamless corner tank, 2 joins in the front, which I realize is not as ideal as a curved glass front).
I realize that Top Fin is considered the lowest of the low when it comes to aquariums, but still, this is unusual right? My last Top Din tank from Petsmart (identical 55 hex corner tank) lasted 10 years and that was among heavy abuse cleaning the seams with a scrub brush.
Anyway, the sprung leak is so big it's spraying in an arc around 2 feet away from the tank and has already leaked about 4 inches of water in an hour which I am catching in a giant plastic tub to re-use.
At this rate I'm going to guess it will leak 30 gallons down to the leak spot in 5 hours. So this is no small leak, and it happened out of the blue just like that.
What I'm wondering I guess, other than the low quality tank (which IMHO still shouldn't do something like that, I don't care how cheap the tank is), is there anything else I could be missing here? I haven't hit the tank seams with anything, bumped rock into it...The fish inside are the same fish I had living in the last tank for 10 years, only one larger fish (foxface rabbitfish) and the others small -- I do fill the tank almost to the top but again did that with the last one too and that took 10 years to leak.
My plan is to go to PetSmart and get a replacement and do a total fish/water/gravel/rock swap, and bring them back the defective, not what I planned for my Tuesday, but now I'm feeling paranoid that it will just happen again.
Just bad luck? I'm just beside myself because my last tank sprung the leak in June when I got this new one, this one took only 5 months to do the exact same thing.
Do you have any fish in the tank at the moment. I think you should let it drain and get some silicon caulk stuff at a hardware store and seal up the leak.
