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HELP! Tang Tank EMERGENCY!

1509 Views 6 Replies 5 Participants Last post by  stslimited84, 
S
Hey everybody,

I need help in a bad way. Last night, half of the water in my 75 gal tang tank spilled onto the floor. The tank is at my g/f's house so I havent had a chance to see it yet. The tank doesnt appear to have cracked, and it looks like the leak may have come from one of the 2 XP3 filters I have on the tank.

Luckily, I have a UGJ that is providing water movement and bio filtration right now. I wont be at the house until later tonight.

First things first. What steps do I need to take when I get there, besides locate the problem? I'm going to slowly refill the volume of the tank to make sure the tank isnt the problem. Are the bio bacteria in my two canisters going to be dead since there hasnt been any water movement in the filters since sometime last night?

How do I salvage this problem? Do I need to worry about an ammonia spike due to possible bio filtration problems?

What steps do I take?

Tank inhabitants:

4 gobies
1 juvie calvus,
12 cyps
3 synos
4 multies

Thanks in advance!!
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S
triscuit said:
Easy, it'll be okay.

Your biggest problem will be water damage. Some bacteria in the xp3s will survive temporary anoxia, and your tank substrate will have plenty of bacteria to repopulate. Gently rinse out the filter media in tank water, add a handful of gravel into one of the baskets in each, and then start up the filters again.

What a mess, that really is tough... I hope it's an easy problem to fix! (I'm going to go check my xp3... :? )
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Ok, I've looked over everything. It seems as tho one of the clips that seals the top portion of the xp3 onto the filter housing became loose. I'm currently refilling the tank, after rinsing out both XP3's as recommended.

Hopefully this turns out to be the case, and not a cracked filter and/or tank. Like I said, upon closer inspection, it appears to be ok.

I added 3 cap fulls of Prime (the dosage for 150 gals) just to be on the safe side to neutralize any possible ammonia, if there is any...hopefully none.

I'm just glad I had an UGJ system with a big sponge that should have plenty of bacteria on it. I'm hoping the sponge has enough bacteria to system the biofilter and to re-seed the XP3's.

fingers crossed!

If in fact the loose clamp on the XP3 turns out to be the culprit, the only way I can explain it is one of my g/f's 3 cats got into the stand and was messing around and hit the clamp. Also, the power strip where all of the Aquarium equipment is plugged in was turned off...again, had to be a cat!

Thoughts? any other suggestions?

Thanks again!

P.S.

All of this after this past weekend when my gobies spawned! can you believe it?!
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S
Thankyou to everybody who offered their advice.

All is well again...fingers crossed anyway! 8)
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