Shrimplets and Leaky Tank

I came home last night and noticed my 3 year old tank has started to leak. I moved all the adults out and plants out. I knew there was 1 berried female but nobody had eggs.

I went back and looked in the tank real close and there were several barely can be seen babies zooming about!! They are less than a week old, I just got to mama last Friday and she was berried til at least Sunday.

I had just moved all my CPOs and ghost shrimp to my community tank to make room for these shrimp. 1 CPO is berried too so I moved her in a net, and transferred her underwater into a cup then set the cup in the community. Wasn’t sure if exposing the eggs to air might cause fungus or something. I’m super pumped and hope she will be ok.

I don’t think I should drain the leaky tank at this point as the babies might get crushed in the gravel. The tank is cylindrical with a base at the bottom. It’s leaking from the base. If I push down on the glass it’ll temporarily stop the leaking but not sure if at any point it’ll start massive leaking. Any ideas? Thoughts?

 

Hi,
I'm not sure if either of these would work, but they're what I'd probably try if it was me.

Firstly, maybe you could use sillicone sealant.
I know that the surfaces are meant to be dry but I'm wondering if you recruited a friend to press down on the glass to stop the leak, dried the gap really well with kitchen roll and applied a line of sillicone round the base.
Then hold the glass in place for 15 minutes or so (you could take turns!) until the sealant has begun to cure.

The other thing that comes to mind is pressing some plumbers putty along the gap, possibly all the way round the circumference and hence sealing the space between glass and base.

Hope these ideas might help!

Emma

 

I’ve thought about that. I’ll pick some up later in the day. I know silicone sealant isn’t but would plumbers putty be non toxic?

 

HI again, I must admit that I wondered about that. It's obviously designed for sinks etc so could contain fungicides and other nasties.

I've just had a VERY quick Google re using it for aquariums and there's a lot of info out there so it's probably worth a look yourself before making a decision.

Re the sillicone. You can obviously get the specific aquarium one but there's a few 'plumbing' ones that are fine as they don't have the fungicides (and they're loads cheaper than those little tubes of aquarium ones) I've read on here loads of times people recommending specific ones (but can't remember any names-sorry!)

Hope I've helped (A little bit!)

Emma

 

I'd use a siphon and drain water into a clean tote or bucket and suck up any babies into it at same time. After it settled I'd put some of the substrate into it and if you had a sponge filter into the bucket as well. Then I'd clean out tank keeping all plants substrate I could into a pail and either reseal tank or fget a new one.

 

Thanks Emma I ended up getting silicone sealant last night and sealed the tank all around. It still had a really small leak. It’s now in the sink for the time being

Would there be a way to tell how if I got all the babies? I can’t see them at all unless they swim

 

Hi!
Well, it was worth a try!
Whenever I'm trying to locate babies that I've siphoned out due a gravel vacuuming (amongst all the bits of detritus) I poke around with the stick end of the net and scoop them out when they move. Since yours are in among gravel, that would probably work. You just have a be really quick with the net otherwise as soon as they settle again, they disappear!!
I've got a really tiny 'shrimp net' that you can get on Amazon, it's got very small holes so that even the smallest shrimp doesn't fall through it.
Hope this helps!
Good luck!
Emma