Coleallensmom
Planted Tank Enthusiast
Saturday (3/12) started out pretty well. Had a party in the evening for my youngest son's birthday (3/13, he's two!). Cleaned up the party mess and had all children in bed sleeping finally between 9-10pm. Decided to sit and read a book to get a few minutes of quiet before going to bed. About an hour goes by and suddenly I hear this strange sound coming from the dining room. Go in a flip on the light...water is pouring out of the ceiling fan! I grabbed some pots and sat them under the fan to catch the mess, then ran upstairs...turns out my 8 year old Cole's 20 gal is leaking water at the base molding. Grabbed his PWC bucket and siphoned water out of his tank into the bucket, netted all of his fish into the bucket, threw in his heater and then jumped in the car. By this time it is 11:30pm-12am, so my only choice was to go to Walmart. Of course, the largest size glass aquarium they carry in store is a 10 gallon. Grab it, pay for it, and rush home. Scooped as much as of his gravel out of the 20 as I could and filled up the new tank. Put his filter and heater on and put the fish in there until morning. His tank sits on my other son's (6yrs) dresser, so all of his brother's clothes were soaking wet. Finally mopped all the water in the bedroom/on the dresser, got all of the wet clothes down to the washer, and then cleaned up the mess all over my kitchen table downstairs in the dining room. By the time I went to bed, it was 2am! Got up this morning and headed out. Went to Petco, then Petsmart. Neither had 20 gallon highs. Went to the Petco on the other side of town..no luck there either. Found a Mom n Pop fish store near the 2nd Petco...they had one left. ($40! I only paid $20 for my 20 gallon brand new at a $1 per gallon sale!) Get the tank in the truck (by this time it's Noon!) start heading toward home to grab some lunch and I get a call on my cell phone. I had emailed a guy last Monday about a 10 gal aquarium stand he had listed on Craigslist as a Tv stand for $10 under Furniture. (I have no 10 gallon, but $10 seemed too amazing to pass up!) He wants to meet, so instead of heading home, I head for the opposite side of town. (Who needs to eat?!) Meet the guy and get the stand for $10...Didn't even argue the price! He still had the aquarium (it was set up for hermit crabs) he bought with it, so he threw that in for free. My boys had taken over my 5 gal hospital tank as a terrarium for their own hermit crabs a while back, so when we got home we switched everything in the 5 gallon terrarium over the 10 gallon terrarium. Dumped the rest of the substrate from my oldest son's leaking 20 gallon (which was in the bath tub this whole time...luckily once the water had gotten down to about 2inches, it stopped leaking so profusely). Moved his plants and fish out of the temporary 10 gallon and into the new 20 gallon we bought. (All are seemingly fine, so far!) While all of this is going on, my 2 year old is in the living room playing with my husband and my 4 year old. He grabs a toy and climbs up at my computer desk and accidentally bangs the toy on my brand new (got it for Christmas) desktop computer screen. Which is now blinking while I type. I have no idea if I can (don't even want to think about it!) get it replaced or not..but this has been one exhausting, EXPENSIVE day. {sigh} I spent my baby's birthday running around with my head cut off trying to fix things for my oldest son. At least all my children are happy right? (My 6 year old is claiming the new 10 gal and the tank stand. lol) Just completely thankful that all the water seems to have found the hole in the wall for the ceiling fan and leaked out into my dining room instead of making a puddle on/in the ceiling. I think I'd pull all of my hair out if I had water stains to deal with yet. Tomorrow will be better, right? 
Our new 10 gallon Craigslist tank/stand:
Our new 10 gallon Craigslist tank/stand:
