A little venting needed

[Noel 9764]

I got a 150 gal tank off craigslist. Stripped, re sealed the tank. Filled it up with water! Yeah no leaks!! Kuddos to me. Two months later last night I did a 50% water change for my fish. Vacuumed the poo. Sat back and relaxed with my hubby. I then heard water leaking.
Yes, two months later I have a leak in my tank.
This was noticed at 7:30 last night.
I don't have a back up tank as of yet. All I have is a 3 foot plastic kiddy pool. I drained as much water into the pool, put all my fish in the pool. Along with sand.
I was afraid of loosing all my fish no heater no filter... It looked like a pond. My hubby did not want to mess with the tank. Thank god our taxes came back. My sweetie ran me down to petsmart and bought a new 120 gal tank. We set up the new tank same sand, and we used the extra bilge pump off the boat to pump most of the water back into the new tank. Finally at 1:00 am we were done. Not a fun night!
My question is we have a canister filter and this all happend after my big water change. I was just emerging into the nitrate faze along with the alge bloom. Tonight everything is o so. Did my cycling get messed up?
If so how much? And could I have done anything different?

I am bumbed though
That money was going to my guardianship rights for my soon to be adult disabled son. So now I am going to have to wait till summer. On a good note though we caught it in time. Thank you everyone love and hugs to all. And only 2 fish diddnt make it through this.


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[addisonnolann]

My advice would be to keep testing your water daily and look out for spikes. Really be on top of the water change game. Any spike and do a water change. In regards to this whole situation, I'm really sorry. That's a terrible thing to have happen.


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[PA Pat]

from everything I have read on here, you should be ok. The bacteria in the filters is what your growing, not the water.

 

[uncgirl1]

I'm so sorry that happened to you but I'm glad you were able to get it fixed! I'm also very sorry for the loss of your 2 fish.

I am relatively new to all of this serious fish keeping but I'll do my best to answer your questions. Most of the good bacteria lives in your filter. As long as the filter doesn't dry out it is my understanding the the bacteria will be ok for a while. I'm thinking you should be ok. But I would caution you to the test the water parameters daily to make sure that everything is still acting properly. I have also learned that anything is possible in this hobby. There is very little bacteria in the actual water column itself. I hope this helped and I hope it all works out for you. Keep us posted!


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[Noel 9764]

My water changes were on wed. And sat. But yes I'll be like a mad scientist doing water perimeter checks. Thanks


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[Delapool]

Wow - that must of been a killer of a job. Good luck with the new tank.

 

[trennamw]

Since you kept the substrate and filter wet and going, you've preserved some of your bacteria colonies. The bacteria live on all of the surfaces, including but not limited to the filter media.


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