A complete HORROR story...

[shazam26]

I cannot believe this has happened to me right now.
I've just gotten back into fish owning.
I didn't want to take any risks so I had one shipped in instead of going with the non-rimmed aquarium tanks they had in stock.
I come into my room today....

My aquarium has, to put a long story short, exploded.
The contents are all over my floor.
Everything is soaked.
From my latest finished assignments from my university profs, to my freshly washed clothes, and my fish are scattered along the floor dead.
I was so devastated.
I checked the tank and saw that the corner had given way. It was a faulty tank. I'm so, so agitated.
Why is it on my first try back at fish care, this would happen?
My red fin, my cat fish, and my loach Hoakey died. -_- Luckily, my newest loach secreted the mucus layer, and survived. I put her in my friends old Bala tank and she's currently good as new. For a fish that'd been left out overnight, she sure made a complete come back. At least that's one thing to raise my spirits....
Has anybody else here had a similar experience?
I can't help but feel like there was something I could do to prevent this...

[angelfish83]

Yup. You could have checked, double checked, and triple checked all the seams before you filled the tank and made sure it was 100% level...

Still, that's horrible. So so sorry dude...

[TammyLiz]

WOW, that is tragic.

I can't even imagine how frustrating that would be. The largest tank I've had break was only 10 gallons, and it was from an accident, not a faulty tank. And I was home. It was just a couple of weeks ago and ever since I've been looking at my 55 gallon in my living room thinking "Man, I hope that thing never breaks!" Its kind of a wake up call to see 10 gallons gushing onto the floor, and know I've got another one thats more than five times as large. Even the 10 gallons was a ton of water and it was everywhere.

How big was your tank? Are you going to have to pay to replace it or will the company replace it for you since it was a defect?

I'm so sorry it happened. I really feel for you.

[angelfish83]

It could be worse- a guy around here was killed 2 years ago when his ten gal exploded infront of him while he was looking at it and it shot a glass shard into the worst possible place and he didn't make it...

[TammyLiz]

What a freak occurence! Did you read that somewhere? Did it say anything about why it exploded? Ten gallons doesn't create that much pressure.

[angelfish83]

That's what someone said on the forum I used to be on. It was something about the tank sliding a little bit and the pressure knocking the end out or something like that. It was in the newspaper and on all the forums around here.

The tank was not levelled and had too much stuff in it and ... just like people have died by standing on their toilet, having the porcelain shatter, and landing on it in the worst possible way...

Stuff happens... sometimes that stuff really sucks...

[The Kapenta Kid]

It could be worse- a guy around here was killed 2 years ago when his ten gal exploded infront of him while he was looking at it and it shot a glass shard into the worst possible place and he didn't make it...

Probably a great way to go. Take a look at your fish and bang, a shard shoots through your eye socket into the cerebral cortex and curtains. Beats slobbering and slavering in the senility ward or writhing in the cancer hospice.

[mikev]

Probably a great way to go.

Hmm...indeed. There may be a business opportunity here, selling detonators for 10g tanks.

[shazam26]

Here's the irony- I did thoroughly check the tank. I even got it checked before I myself gave it the inspection.
Turns out the crack was only revealed when the plastic sealing that covered the corners and the interior sealing gave way to the break pressure. It was a small nick hidden by the encasement. -_- And it grew like wildfire overnight, while I wasn't there. I was up in the art studio until 4, then ended up crashing at a friends house. Then I come home to that.
I'm just so angry. I've gotten another new tank, which was discounted.
It's a 20 gallon, and I got it for the price of a ten gallon. And I plan to have very little in there outside my 3 weather loaches, perhaps some baby kuhli's if they come in. But I won't set it up just yet. I'm slightly paranoid at the moment I'm just thankful I was at least able to save one. I thought she was dead until I went to scoop her up, and she flopped up in the air. She's so peaceful right now, it may as well have never happened to her.
I think I'm going to stay semi-small, and with smaller loaches- progressively updating as time goes by and the size of my living space grows.
But I need to know if the 20 will house a small group of Kuhli's for a couple years? If not, I guess I'm going to have to go with tiny fish and my weather loaches.

BTW- this guy, he had too much stuff in his tank? You mean decoration, or do you mean fish, or both?
I have a nice few plants for my tank, and hiding places, though it's not cluttered.
LOL I'm scared to death right now. I don't want anything else blowing up my NEW tank on me.

[TammyLiz]

20 gallons is large enough for kuhlis, but not for weather loaches, IMO.

Don't worry too much about your new tank breaking. Make sure it is level (shim under the edges of the stand/furniture if your floor is not level) and that you don't have any sharp or heavy objects, such as corners on rocks, resting on the glass to create pressure points. The likely-hood of the tank breaking is extremely low if you just take those precautions.

[shazam26]

Hmm, that's too bad. But if it isn't large enough for the weather loaches, to the bala tank they go!
I'm just going to take it easy and little for now, work my way back up.
I'm very discouraged, but not enough to discard fish care.
Any recommended fish in a tank with Kuhli's? Or are they best in a tank amongst themselves?