# 20 gallons of aquarium water in your neighbor's apartment



## igor.kanshyn (Jan 14, 2010)

Can you imagine the situation from the title?
I can easily do. I just need to recall today's disaster. 

My 20g tank started leaking when we were not home. At the moment we returned we had a tank with some paddles on the bottom and shrimps jumping in there. All the rest of water occupied our neighbor's place 

Now I'm a little to scary to keep any aquariums at all


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## Kerohime (Jan 10, 2011)

Yeah... 

I had a mishap with leaking a couple of months ago, I set up a tank in the guest room and didnt notice it leaking until after 2 days (no lid so I assumed evaporation). 

It had been slowly leaking to the basement (where our tenants just moved in). 
The tenants called my dad (he's the landlord) and he sent in a handyman to go look for pipe leaks. They opened up the ceiling to find no pipes, and the cieling wasnt fixed for a couple of weeks too. 

I felt like crap honestly... I have so far paid for the damages for my dad. I dont think I'll set up anymore tanks unless its in the basement, I just dont like going down there very much. I couldnt imagine keeping more than 1 tank in an apartment though. 

Well, at least my dad owns the house... they cant really evict me even if they wanted to. lol


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## mrobson (Mar 5, 2011)

that sucks hopefully you have understanding neighbors, i almost flooded my own house doing a water change. I was just topping my 55 back up when i got a call from my boss i left the room to take the call and got distracted by T.V. i totally forgot about it until my dog started barking his ass off when the water started pouring over the sides. Luckily for me its a tiled floor and i had leveled my tank so i poured over the front corner away from my wires, but still had a lot of water to clean up.


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## laurahmm (Apr 1, 2010)

oh no Igor =/ I hope everything is okay. I hope the shrimpies made it and are okay as well. I'm sorry to hear that... that really sucks. 


Laura


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## gkarmadibetta (Dec 12, 2010)

igor.kanshyn said:


> Can you imagine the situation from the title?
> I can easily do. I just need to recall today's disaster.
> 
> My 20g tank started leaking when we were not home. At the moment we returned we had a tank with some paddles on the bottom and shrimps jumping in there. All the rest of water occupied our neighbor's place
> ...


Oh no Igor, i am sorry to hear this. I hope everything is ok. How can a tank have a leak all of a sudden??
I am worry too now, i have a gold fish tank in a living room


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## Ciddian (Mar 15, 2006)

gah! I am so sorry Igor D:


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## tranceaddict (Apr 3, 2011)

Balls! But at least it was a slow leak, not like this smart guy!


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## igor.kanshyn (Jan 14, 2010)

Kerohime said:


> Yeah...
> 
> I had a mishap with leaking a couple of months ago, I set up a tank in the guest room and didnt notice it leaking until after 2 days (no lid so I assumed evaporation).
> 
> ...


Yes, it's quite bad. You affected felling of your relatives. They forgive your easily, but they will keep problem in their memory.

It's hard for me to think about cost of the ceiling repairing that should be done. It can be quite costly


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## igor.kanshyn (Jan 14, 2010)

laurahmm said:


> oh no Igor =/ I hope everything is okay. I hope the shrimpies made it and are okay as well. I'm sorry to hear that... that really sucks.


Yes, it was a big problem. Thank you.
Luckily we came home when shrimps was mainly alive, I might lost some, but the rest are OK and are living plastic boxes now. 
The tank that has been broken was a main home for my yellow shrimps colony.


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## igor.kanshyn (Jan 14, 2010)

gkarmadibetta said:


> Oh no Igor, i am sorry to hear this. I hope everything is ok. How can a tank have a leak all of a sudden??
> I am worry too now, i have a gold fish tank in a living room


Thank you.
This the most strange part. It was Ok for a long time and it was Ok at the morning, but suddenly it started leaking quite bad. I haven't found an exact place where it leaks, but it's something in silicone that holds the bottom.
It was not leaking slowly as it usually happen, it instantly started letting water go.

That's a problem. I don't really see any ways to be safe from that kind of problems


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## igor.kanshyn (Jan 14, 2010)

tranceaddict said:


> Balls! But at least it was a slow leak, not like this smart guy!


Yes, it's a famous movie. At least ha has a popular movie about that fail


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## mr_bako (Dec 23, 2010)

*nasty*



igor.kanshyn said:


> Yes, it's a famous movie. At least ha has a popular movie about that fail


hey igor, sorry to hear about incident that just occurred. That is not good.
What tank did it happen to? and was it an old tank?

I hope your shrimp are fine! and hope its not the SSS/SSS+ CRS.

hope for some good news soon!


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## bigfishy (Jun 19, 2009)

I am sorry about your 20G mishap



You will be alright!

Just stay strong! 

We are all here to comfort and support you thru your difficult times!


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## mrobson (Mar 5, 2011)

igor.kanshyn said:


> Now I'm a little to scary to keep any aquariums at all


i dont like the sounds of that, i would just consider placing your stands in rubbermaid tubs or some sort of floor pan. Id hate to think of all those awesome tanks being broken down, your hairy tank was very impressive.


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## igor.kanshyn (Jan 14, 2010)

mr_bako said:


> hey igor, sorry to hear about incident that just occurred. That is not good.
> What tank did it happen to? and was it an old tank?
> 
> I hope your shrimp are fine! and hope its not the SSS/SSS+ CRS.
> ...


Thank you.
The tank was used when I got it, it was in a good shape. I'm not sure, but it looks like it was resealed by someone.

It was a tank with yellow shrimps, they are mostly fine, waiting for a new tank. CRS are fine, they live in another place.


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## igor.kanshyn (Jan 14, 2010)

mrobson said:


> i dont like the sounds of that, i would just consider placing your stands in rubbermaid tubs or some sort of floor pan. Id hate to think of all those awesome tanks being broken down, your hairy tank was very impressive.


Thank you.
I was thinking about prevention of that. The only thing I've found is a *water level detector with alarm*.


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## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

the water detector alarm would only be of benefit if you are there, whereas the rubbermaid would serve as a catch basin.


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## Alexpatrascu (Jun 13, 2010)

Man that sucks big time !!!

I had my 30 gal SALT water cracking at 11:30 PM after I transefered all the livestock and it all 30 gal of water went on the floor.

Lucky me....my carpet acted like a big sponge and it absorbed most of the water but still I had to mop to get a few gallons of water from under the couches....

Then I had my Aquaclear hob filter leeking a few gallons from my 10 gal RCS tank overnight....good thing I saw it in the morning before I left for work....messed up my aquarium stand thugh....had to get another one !!!

But that doesn't keep me from keeping shrimps.

Good luck anyway with all this, I hope is not conna cost too much ti fix this !!!


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## belo (Sep 25, 2010)

feeling so sorry to hear all this...Igor's tanks are very nice looking.


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## s2rai (Sep 28, 2010)

Similar thing happened to me too - only it was my fault. I left the siphon in a ten gallon because I thought it would be okay that there was no suction. When I came back, the tank was empty and there was no water AT ALL anywhere. The carpet was dry. I kind of scratched my head and forgot about it until we had to leave the house a little later. Ten galons of stinky fishwater on daddy's much-loved car was not fun...

Hope your shrimp are all okay !


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## Kerohime (Jan 10, 2011)

God I cant even imagine a saltwater leak. 

Just the salt ring around the tank drives me insane, to have salt water leak onto hardwood floor... I'm glad I gave up on salt.


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## Alexpatrascu (Jun 13, 2010)

Kerohime said:


> God I cant even imagine a saltwater leak.
> 
> Just the salt ring around the tank drives me insane, to have salt water leak onto hardwood floor... *I'm glad I gave up on salt*.


*Yeah, me too.*

*note to Igor*.....don't get into salt water aquariums !!!


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## igor.kanshyn (Jan 14, 2010)

s2rai said:


> Similar thing happened to me too - only it was my fault. I left the siphon in a ten gallon because I thought it would be okay that there was no suction. When I came back, the tank was empty and there was no water AT ALL anywhere. The carpet was dry. I kind of scratched my head and forgot about it until we had to leave the house a little later. Ten galons of stinky fishwater on daddy's much-loved car was not fun...
> 
> Hope your shrimp are all okay !


Your story have a half-happy end 
I hope that car was not cabriolet 

Shrimps are relatively Ok, thank you.
I've restored the tank. It looks empty now. It's less plants and shrimps.


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## qwerty (Dec 15, 2009)

I've ruined enough carpets and ceilings to never leave the room when I'm doing a water change again.

It seems pretty well everyone in the hobby who's been in it long enough has at least one big spill/broken tank story.

I guess you just gotta put it in perspective. There's plenty of people keeping far more tanks, and far larger tanks, and they manage to sleep peacefully at night. If this were a more frequent occurence then I'm sure the mentality of the hobby would reflect this.

Hope you get this mess cleaned up, and hope your neighbours take it well.


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## carmenh (Dec 20, 2009)

Yes...I have a good one involving a leaky 125 gallon tank and a classic Gibson Les Paul guitar cherished by my hubby  (It survived...just...)



qwerty said:


> It seems pretty well everyone in the hobby who's been in it long enough has at least one big spill/broken tank story.


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## qwerty (Dec 15, 2009)

I destroyed about 1/4 of the house once... Bathroom, kitchen, and basement, and all the electrical wiring in between.

I kinda like to pretend it never happened -_-


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## carmenh (Dec 20, 2009)

Yes, I find that works best 



qwerty said:


> I kinda like to pretend it never happened -_-


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## igor.kanshyn (Jan 14, 2010)

carmenh said:


> Yes, I find that works best


Yeah, I like that


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## splur (May 11, 2011)

qwerty said:


> I guess you just gotta put it in perspective. There's plenty of people keeping far more tanks, and far larger tanks, and they manage to sleep peacefully at night.


Not anymore... this is almost scaring me out of having aquariums.


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## qwerty (Dec 15, 2009)

If it bothers you that much then invest in acrylic.

But think about it. This is a profitable industry, and if the aquariums were so fragile that this was a real problem, then nobody would keep aquariums and these companies wouldn't have a market to sell to anymore.

It's in their best interest to make these aquariums durable and reliable, and there is room to improve even more on the average cheap aquarium. So rest assured that the manufacturers know what they're doing.


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