What could have been done in this situation

[Rcassiejr007]

At 2am I hear water dripping, I look at my tank and a large leak has formed in my 55 gallon tank, 2 large Koi, 1 large goldfish in tank. My only option with no other tank available was to fill up my tub with tank water and put fish in there till i could purchase and setup new tank. I was very stressful event getting the fish out of tank as all three where very large, 12" or more. Finally placed in tube, put an air stone in to circulate some air. Got to bed really late, purchased and setup new tank next day. Should i have waited, or was putting them in new tank my best option?? Few hours I noticed 2 of the fish where not acting right, swimming erratically, darting, gasping for air. Outcome both died and I had to dispose of. Any suggestions what I should have done different.

[Aiken Drum]

Desperate times call for desperate measures. My guess at what went wrong, detergent in the bath. Rinse, rinse, rinse some more. Then repeat.

Unless you are putting in plans for such an eventuality, how can you prepare for it. How was you to know the dropping wasnt a prelude to a catastrophic tank failure? Possibly you could have kept the tank topped up, dealt with the drips and got away with it. Possibly not. Who knows? You did your best with what you had.

Possibly keep some tote boxes lying around you could use.

[gilpi]

Originally Posted by Rcassiejr007

At 2am I hear water dripping, I look at my tank and a large leak has formed in my 55 gallon tank, 2 large Koi, 1 large goldfish in tank. My only option with no other tank available was to fill up my tub with tank water and put fish in there till i could purchase and setup new tank. I was very stressful event getting the fish out of tank as all three where very large, 12" or more. Finally placed in tube, put an air stone in to circulate some air. Got to bed really late, purchased and setup new tank next day. Should i have waited, or was putting them in new tank my best option?? Few hours I noticed 2 of the fish where not acting right, swimming erratically, darting, gasping for air. Outcome both died and I had to dispose of. Any suggestions what I should have done different.

Worst nightmare happening in real life! Im sorry this happened to you. At this point you just have to move forward but I would have assessed what part of the tank the leak was coming from, if it was somewhere half way up, you could have gotten away with it by bringing the water level to that point. If the leak was at the bottom of the tank, then you had to act. Water in the tub should have been ok as long as it was treated and even so, some soap residue in the tub could have been deadly for the fish. I have a 40 gallon and I keep an empty 20 gallon on the bottom, just in case. Don't look back and move forward with the hobby. Please keep us posted on how you managed with the other fish. Good luck to you!

[Autumnsky]

All the above. This is a very tough spot to be in. You did what you could. Just capturing them and moving them can cause stress. Unlike a show GF which is captured and handled all the time, regular very large aquarium fish are generally left to be in their water world. So capture can be a big stress. If there was any left soap it could have affected them.

Also, very sorry you had this difficult experience.