Aquarium

Friday I whacked the aquarium edge with a plastic hanger. Good thing too. It got me looking at the glass.

For months, there'd been a chip out of the edge of one sheet of glass. (The aquarium walls are 4 sheets of glass held together with a silicone seal.) That tiny chip had spread into 2 tiny cracks - a small piece of glass had become seperate from the large sheet and was held in place only by the connecting sheet and the silicone. Good enough. But air was getting through those cracks and forming a bubble under the silicone. Lovely. A leak in the making. And you know from past posts, the fish haven't exactly been low-stress lately.

So, I pulled the water level down a couple inches below the crack. We still have about 6 gallons in there. That completely wiped out their filter, air, and heater. We need a new tank. Completely starting over, and right after the dumb dish soap incident. Aaaagh!

I'd like a non-breakable acrylic tank. But that's shelling out $200 instead of $15. So I'll get over it.

Meanwhile, the fish went back to hover-crafting. Since pulling down the water a few days ago, the tank got a nice stench. I figured there was a connection between the hovering and stench, so I pulled them all out yesterday into a bucket of treated tap water. Hovering turned into complete lack of motion. Gaaah! Back into the smelly tank. Atleast I know they're breathing.

But get this: An hour after I put them into that bucket, it smelled too. They were in it for several hours, during which time the lid was off the tank and the tank stopped smelling. What in the WORLD?! I figure it has something to do with bacteria. But I'm at a loss as to how to prevent it or fix it.

When we get the new tank, I'm dumping the gravel. I already dumped everything else. The filter system will be vinegared to get any possible dish soap off. And we're filling it with special water from the pet store instead of treating the tap. But I have no clue if that's gonna fix it. Or prevent it. Or save the fish. Or keep me sane.

I keep going back to "BUT I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING!"

Yeah.

Clearly.