All-Glass stand Failing!?! - UPDATED

[tsonnenl]

I bought an 72g All-Glass tank and oak stand 10 months ago. Over the last two months, I have noticed the cabinet doors becoming more and more difficult to open, and assumed it was the wood on the doors swelling from moisture around the tank. Tonight I noticed that the front support between the two doors is visibly bending inward. I can now fit a finger between the support and door when the door is fully closed. I have talked to the manager of the store where I bought it, and he predictably advised that it would be better to deal with All-Glass directly, which I have done. Unfortunately, they only provide an email address which doesn't make me very confident about their response time, considering I have a 72 gallon bomb waiting to go off in my living room.

Ugh. Does anyone have any experience in dealing with All-Glass that they care to share? Any other thoughts?

I will go ballistic if they do not replace the stand that I counted on to last 20 years after it fails in less than one. As you know, its not as simple as swapping stands either. Completely stripping down a heavily planted 72g tank and setting it back up is not only extremely annoying and time consuming, but I will probably have to buy additional buckets and all of that crap too. Would asking for additional compensation for time and expenses to right their wrong be out of line? I'm leaning toward sucking it up and not saying anything if they replace the stand in the next day or so, but what do you think? Is that unreasonable to ask for? Any creative ideas for getting stands swapped without a complete teardown?

I'll keep you updated on the situation. Thanks for letting me vent...

Todd

 

[William]

I say just drain the tank down to have just enough water for the fish, get several of your friends to help you slide a piece of heavy duty board under the tank to aid in lifting evenly, and just setting the tank on the floor.


I'd rather do that then wake up to a crash and thousands of dollars of damage in the middle of the night...

 

[Enki]

Oh man what a hassle!

I am with william about getting that thing onto the floor or another stand ASAP.

Personally I would NOT go with a straight replacement for the stand, I would try to get something stronger. The first one failed why not another

How are you at building stuff? the garf.org stand is super easy to build, you can even get the lumber store to cut your wood for you so all you need is a drill driver to assemble.

If you are not a builder you might try to find a local handy-man, check the bulletin board at the lumber yard or hardware store. If he keeps it simple you could come in under the price of a LFS priced stand, with better strength.

 

[RogerMcAllen]

If doing a board lift and placing the tank on the floor, be sure to put some 2x4's down on the floor first or it will be very hard to set the tank down and nearly impossible to pick up.

 

[Enki]

Good point Roger!

tsonnenl, what are the dimensions of your tank? Is the 72 a bowfront?

 

[QTOFFER]

*nods and agrees with William*

Better to be safe than sorry. Your referring to it as a 72 gal time bomb is right on the money. Get that tank onto a stable surface like the floor ASAP - especially if you have kids or other pets around - don't delay!

See what All Glass will do for you. They're the biggest aquarium manufacturer with a reputation to protect, so I can't imagine them jerking you around. They should certainly replace the stand free and pronto. If you reasonably explain the inconvenience of the whole situation, how you are a loyal All Glass customer, that you are considering getting another tank in the future, etc, etc, etc; you may be able to get nicer hood or some future discounts out of them. It's worth a shot, but first see what they are going to do about your collapseable tank stand.

Hope this works out for you.

BTW, is the stand made of coated particleboard? I saw some of these when I was shopping for tanks and worried about just what you are going through now.

 

[tsonnenl]

Yup. Bowfront. That's why that front support is so critical. I'm draining it to about halfway now.

Any building would take time and patience that I frankly don't have at this point. I built my own PC canopy so I'm not completely useless, but the curved front makes this a little more complicated. For some reason, I still have faith that a replacement will hold and that they'll help get it sorted out in the next day or two. I can't imagine every one of the stands designed specifically to hold that tank wouldn't be able to do so. The store manager had never heard of the support bending on those either. If the second one starts to go, I'll have them pony up for the rectangular 75g stand which doesn't look nearly as nice, but would be more supportive and woudl have to do.

 

[tsonnenl]

No particleboard here. The grains on the top match the routed sides, so this is real oak. I was comforted by that originally...

 

[Enki]

The bowfront adds a whole pile of complications in building, unless you don't mind corners sticking out

At least try to get a stand that is not made of particle board, I don't think I could sleep at night with that in my house :|

Edit: Solid wood, wow what a bummer. Kudos for your pain

 

[grimlock3000]

My 26 bowfront stand is a piece of crap too if that makes you feel any better. The top rim of mine isn't even wood, its a plastic! The wood stands have real wood rims, I got a black one, and its just plastic, great... Of course I found this out well after I paid $170 for it. I would have loved to have brought it back but did not want to drain and move my tank while I was doing a fishy cycle.

Anyway, I was using a magnet algae scrubber on my tank and the whole thing moves side to side way too much on the stand. It does not feel like it is going to fail, but it is certainly not comforting...

 

[tsonnenl]

How would I get it to the floor without emptying it completely though? This isn't anything like moving a 20g tank. Its going to be close to 300 pounds still if the 150 pounds of gravel and the water it hides doesn't come out. There's no way the tank could handle being pushed from the top hard enough to tip that thing and get a board under it. How thick would the board have to be to handle that kind of load without bowing and supporting only at the corners, which would be the same as just picking it up by hand anyway?

I need a beer.

 

[Allivymar]

You need a case LOL

Oi, what a pain. Atm, I would go grab a couple large plastic garbage cans or containers (new); make sure they aren't treated with anything, rinse em out very well and start draining the tank into em. I'd throw the filter, heater and aerator (if you have one) in one can, add the fish, then move the gravel and decor into the other, splitting the water between em (I'd add more in the fish one, but make sure theres enough to cover everything in the other. You may even need 3). It'll make a secure safe place for the fish and stuff while you work out the details with All-Glass.

 

[Enki]

What's the latest? I'm hoping you found a solution

I would come over to help but I'm a little far away LOL

 

[Sati]

Anyway, I was using a magnet algae scrubber on my tank and the whole thing moves side to side way too much on the stand. It does not feel like it is going to fail, but it is certainly not comforting...

Holy crap, Grimlock, you need to move yours too. I had a 10g on an entertainment center that sqayed like that. I can't believe it survived the earthquake 3 years ago, lol. Then I put the 10g on a dresser and that bowed in. Move the tank!

And BTW, here are my temp stands until I can build real ones this summer:

http://www.ourglasshouse.com/holly/fish/Community_stand.jpg
http://www.ourglasshouse.com/holly/fish/Oranda_stand.jpg
http://www.ourglasshouse.com/holly/fish/Puffer_stand.jpg

It's not pretty, but it's sturdy and it works. Plus, my cats LOVE having it at their eye level, heh.

I used four 5g buckets to save about 50% of the water and drained all the water right down to the gravel line before moving them.

 

[William]

I like your stands Sati, you should just paint, or cover the block, and leave them as is

 

[Sati]

Oh yes, they're absolutely stunning, aren't they

 

[William]

I'm serious, I like that look

 

[Sati]

lol, William... you're goofy

 

[tsonnenl]

Okay. Long day. This morning I got a very quick response from All-Glass that they would replace the stand at no charge (obviously) and that they needed to call and see if the store where I bought it had any in stock. Of course, they did not.

"No problem," they said, "what other stores in your area carry All-Glass products?"

Uhh, you tell me. I calmly explained that the burden of searching for a replacement falls on them since it was their product that failed, and I already will have a ton of work to do just to swap it out. Apparently they just feed their distributors and beyond that, they don't know or care where their products ends up. Unfortunately, there aren't many decent stores in my area, even less that carry larger tank stands, and who knows if they're All-Glass or not. Ironically, I ended up on All-Glass's own website which has a retail store finder, but only if the store signs up on the site. I'm telling the girl, "I'm on YOUR OWN SITE and this is one store near me." Finally she caught on.

Five exchanged phone calls and 7 hours later, I still had a 72 (now 30)gal bomb in my living room ticking away, we'd gone through 8 listed stores, and nobody had anything in stock.

Then the new catch. All-glass can't make the retailer exchange it for stock that they have on hand. The retailer has to agree to it. Ugh. Finally two hits that have it in stock, but they have only one on hand and don't want to have a tank with no stand going into the weekend. Thanks.

Finally at 4PM she finds a store 45 minutes away that is pissed about it, but had reluctantly agreed to give it up. I was advised to call the retailer myself, and suck up! I did, caught some attitude, and made the arrangements to pick it up anyway. Maria at All-Glass was patient with me the whole time, and although she seemed unarmed in her attempts to help me, was doing her best and ultimately got it done.

The plan for the swap was to buy three 70Qt storage bins from Target, put all of the water and fish in there, and try to move the tank with the gravel, plants, and driftwood still in place to avoid having to completely tear the thing apart. As those of you who have tried this probably see coming, 50-60 fish are impossible to catch when they use driftwood blocking for them like a fullback. So out the plants and driftwood came.

With that, four of us picked up the stand and the tank together, using the ledge on the stand as the grip, and inched it forward enough to slide the new stand behind it. From there, we gently slid the tank itself back from the old stand to the new one without much of a fuss. I was surprised at how smoothly the exchange ended up being. I stuffed folded pieces of cardboard under the two front corners and twice as much cardboard under the front support that gave me trouble the first time. That brought it from about 1/4 inch away from level to 1/8 inch, and that was as far as I was willing to take it. What's strange is that the stand, even before we put the tank on top or cardboard underneath, seems shakier than the old one. Hopefully that goes away with a full load of water.

Putting the water back into the tank made me realize how UNBELIEVABLY spoiled I have become from using the python. Moving water to or from the sink has become so easy, I almost lost my mind using a pitcher to move the water from the storage bins on the floor up to the tank. Once the remaining old water went back in, I filled it about 2/3 of the way from the tap to get it to where I can run my filter overnight and hunted the fish and super elusive shrimp down AGAIN to get them back in for the night. I left the plants and driftwood in water in one of the storage bins, and I'll deal with them tomorrow.

Wow, somehow that just turned into an epic story.

Why can't the powerhead have just broken? Replacing that takes two seconds...

 

[QTOFFER]

What an epic story it was! I'm glad it went as smoothly as it did and I hope your fish aren't too stressed from the double-move.

I'm just very surprised that AllGlass deflects so much of its customer service duties on to its distributors. I was expecting/hoping that they would have been much more helpful given the immense hassle of having to tear down a 72 gal tank on account of a faulty stand that is less than 1 yr old.

You deserve that beer and your fish deserve some extra fresh water!