Where's the shop vac!

carcrazy

carcrazy

New Member
I have read about other people having tanks crack and flood the whole place but I never thought it would happen to me - until today. I had just finished doing a water change on two tanks, the 320 g and the 165 g, and I had just sat down on the couch to relax when heard a popping and whooshing sound. What the heck is that? The 60 g sump had cracked on the back panel and was making a water fall onto the floor! :eek: What a mess! It's a good thing I had a shop vac handy or it could of really messed up the carpet. I am running two dehumidifiers at once in the fish room, that should take care of the moisture eventually. :mad:

What a bummer. The sump was a wet/dry for the 320 g fw predator tank. The tank has 2 motoro rays, a jardini and a tiger dat. Luckily, I had just set up 3 feet of air stones with a HiBlow 80 air pump. There is also a hydor sponge filter with a MJ1200 ph and a Fluval 404 for filtration, so I should be okay as long as I watch the ammonia and nitrates.

Now I'm wondering if I should fix the sump, get a new one, or buy an Eheim cannister filter (which doesn't explode). What would you guys suggest?
 
Sumps are great, but you have to make sure its a good quality tank and on a completely flat surface. I just built a wet dry sump for a customer who had a 150 gallon tank, I built a 50 gallon sump but because of its height I made the sump with 3/8 thick glass. If you over build a bit it gives you peace of mind.
 
The surface was flat with styrofoam underneath and the glass was 1/4" thick. There was no center brace or any bracing at all on one side of the sump, though. I think that's why it cracked. I agree with you completely about overbuilding and I should have added a brace on the used sump (in hindsight). I am still learning from the school of hard knocks.
 
I know how you feel, carcrazy. A couple years back, my entire 300 gal. salt water set up exploded in my living room. Besides the complete destruction of the tank, I had to rip out the hard wood and redo the walls.

On the plus side, the sump survived :) You really can't go wrong with a sump set-up for a big tank. I say go for it.
 
Thanks. I did fix the sump by replacing the back glass (boy is old silicone hard to remove!) and added three braces as well as siliconing the other sides. The sump is full of pot scrubbers and has been running for over a year now with no problems. I replaced the Fluval 404 (piece of junk) with an XP3 and an UltimaII 1000 pond filter. Seems to be working for me, the rays have bred four times now.
 
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