What was I thinking?!

Wait a day or two between those last 2 steps, or the silicone either won't hold or it'll leech acetic acid into your tank (vinegar).

 

Your seals are not foolproof if you do them wet. The tank will need to be emptied so you can correctly reseal the cracks. Silicone does not adhere well, wet.

 

from somebody that just had a 135g dump water out into the middle of my living room, eventually killing probably 1g worth of corals and fish....I know how frustrating it is. You want to quit right now....but before you do anything drastic like give things away give it some time. I wanted to quit so many times in the past, but others here told me to hang in and wait! It took over 6 months but I finally got the tank back up! Now I am just as excited about it as before....even when my new $150 heater caught on fire last week and killed what little I had in there again!

First.....duct tape will not work at all. What you need to do is drain everything out of the tank and let it dry out completely. Then you will have to scrape the old silicone off and apply new back on. Then it needs to dry for at least 4 days before you add water in. If it is not dry when it hits water, it will just continue leaking. So it might not be leaking in other places, the silicone just did not dry.

Now sometimes it does not work...if the silicone between the 2 pieces of glass has broke away, you will never be able to reseal it and it will leak. That is what happened to my tank. We scraped and resealed 2x and it still leaked in the same site. There are some great sites on the web on resealing a tank,,,take a look at those. PM me if you need some advice or where to look

Second, people are offering you free tank. I know it is hard to take, but you are young! I would consider taking them up on their generous offer. Once you get things up and going you can pay it forward so to say. But that is one of the great things about this site....most people are here to help and are genuine with their offers!

Third, think of all the things you have learned from this hobby! It is a very frustrating hobby at times, but it is very enjoyable and you seem to really like it. So dont do anything drastic at this point. Ask your LFS or somebody around you to keep your rock and surviving livestock until you settle down a bit and can think clearer what you want to do.

Trust me, I wanted to quit so much over the past 6 months.....I am glad I did not. Just think about it! Good luck

 

Ha HA! you think it's that simple? Way easier said then done. You need to get something thats pretty damn strong to fix those cracks; it'd probably need to be stronger then the glass itself! and wheres all the water gonna go?

 

Water can go into buckets... A 29g tank holds about 24g of water. Rock takes up the rest of the volume. That's 5X 5g buckets.

 

Well well well! Looks like I might not be leaving just yet lol. If you guys wanna gimme suggestions on how to stop this damn leak then I'd be gald to takem. Now that I think about it, school's important, but I'm addicted to fishkeeping and that's not something that I'm gonna lose just yet.

 

yeah... my house is small lol the biocube is in the corner by itself XD

 

You've got some good suggestions in the previous posts, read them over and see what works for you. Shackmel's is the best IMO. Burt everyone has suggestions for each phase you will encounter.

 

JESUS CHRIST! (please forgive me Lord, and I seriously mean it) so basically you've gone through everything and still managed to stay in the hobby?!?! That's pretty damn epic. Well, 3reef is in a way like a home... that is for saltwater fishkeeping lol. And I kinda feel bad about someone just giving me their tank although it's really generous. Well silicone is holding up... for now. I guess I could just think things through for a bit; trust me, this has been fun and freaken annoying at the same time lol. Well let's see... I guess I can ask for a new tank? but I don't wanna be a cheap bastard (excuse the language) just taking advantage of eveyone trying to help me on 3reef. Hmmm..... now then... money is a really big issue and if I'm to get rid of this tank and startover then I'd have a lot of trouble because the biocube comes with a wet dry filter already and I have no idea how to install or create a DIY sump..... Ok well if you guys wanna help me out I GOTS TO MAKE A GAME PLAN! lol. First of all I do have a QT with an algae blenny (got a little sick) so I guess I could put the LR there; as for the maroon clown, I'd probably give it to the LFS to hold it till I'm ready again (if they take it back). Once I establish that then maybe I'll move on. Also I've got 40 lbs of sand so I guess I should move that to the other tank too (hopefully not too much for a 10 gallon, thats all I got.) Once i establish this then I guess I could move on and think out the next phase. Again, thanks for your help guys, really appreciate it.

 

Keep your head up bud. During a move I lost all of my fish and 70% of my coral, cracked the tank, and had to basically start over. All in all it was probably $1500 worth of stuff in 12 hours. I jumped right back into it because I don't like to quit when I fall behind. I think you should keep the same mentality and present an offer to your father to help you out. Do some extra chores, mow the lawn, anything to step up and show that you would like to take on some responsibility to attain the things you want in life. If you present it in a well thought out manner it can only do good.

Here is my tank before everything died. 20+ different types of coral, 2 tangs, fox face, ORA bred percula pair, some other random fish, and a ton of other little critters.