A few days ago I bought a wet/dry vac from Costco; it's great for cleaning the car and my daughters occasional spill on the carpet.

This morning I turn on the shower to let it heat up and I spend a few minutes reading the first book in the Legend of Drizzt series, "Homeland." I put down my book and am about to step in the shower when I hear what resembles a rock or something similar hitting glass.

So I go into the living room and my daughter says, "what was that?" I checked the windows and they're all fine... so then I check the 5 gallon, fine; the 10 gallon, fine. I walk past the 3 gallon betta hurricane jar (bought at Michaels) without paying it much attention because their obviously wasn't any water on the carpet as I walked past.

I jump in the shower do my business and as I turn off the water I hear, "Pappa! Water!"

So I run out of bathroom in just my towel and water is pouring out of the hurricane jar and I see a huge crack running horizontal for a few inches and then down toward the base.

GAH!

I frantically ran for my fish net to save the betta but I couldn't get him out of the moss at the bottom so I finally had to grab him with my hand. He's now safely in the 5 gallon and is doing well.

I then busted out the wet/dry vac and cleaned up the water with no damage to the carpet.

Had that betta jar running for just under three years.

Cracked tanks are no fun, but thankfully it turned out OK for you and your betta. I once came home to a 40 gallon tank that had leaked all over the hardwood floor. The fish luckily had a few inches of water in the bottom.

Funny to have just bought the wet/dry vac, though ...

Last christmas eve I was sitting down watching a movie and I heard drip drip drip. I looked over at my 150g (about 5 feet away) saw nothing, so went back to the movie. A few mins later I hear it again, Drip drip drip. So I got up and went over to the tank. I started looking around at filter hoses and such but once again I saw nothing. I stood there for a few more mins watching the fish when I heard a ripping type sound. Thats when the waterfall began, The water was comming out from the bottom seam of the tank, right across my legs. I lost all 150g of water in about a minute and a half.

My wife was NOT happy with me at all....

Oh jeez....if that ever happens to me count me out of fishkeeping.

Does anyone who had this have a known cause as to why they had these events?? Old tanks, uneven stands?

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Yikes. I wasn't so lucky. I had insomnia one night, got up and came out to the couch. Walking down the hallway the carpet was wet. I figured the kids dumped something then I realized it was way too wet for that. I get down on all fours and look under the 30 gal. Yep, big crack all the way across the bottom of it. I now have a hump in my floor where the subfloor under the carpet needs to be replaced. Mine was caused by an uneven stand.

Is there anyway to predict these events? Like some kind of warning sign? I have 125 gallon now and this is one of my biggest fears

By uneven, do people mean that not all the four corners of the tank are touching the stand properly? Or that the whole tank is uneven?

I think any kind of uneven or not level surface. For larger tanks, I would put them on a piece of styrofoam. I think anything longer than 30" should have foam under them.

Well the tank I have is on a stand that was designed just for it. So if there is any flexing I cannot see it, foam? Does the foam kind of help as a leveling material on the tanks?

Tank flexion is a HUGE reason for cracking. We wont notice the flexion but if there is that torsion on the glass it will break. Making sure tanks are level and flat are important especially as the amount of water increases

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This particular tank was one of those vases from Michael's... it's labeled as hand blown glass and although I couldn't see any imperfections in the glass I think just the fact that's hand blown means that the glass isn't as sound as a classic tank's glass is.

I've never had a fish tank crack own it's own... though It is important to make sure it is level and plumb.

So my center brace snapped the other day on my 46 gallon bowfront when I dropped a big bottle of npk...should I be repairing or replacing my tank?

How about acrylic tank? Any horror stories?

Hand blown vases have no standard thickness or standards other than looking nice. So it's more than possible that there was a thin area of glass that wasn't happy

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Center braces can be replaced. You'll have to look around for a new plastic rim for the top but they're out there. On a reg rectangle its easy fix because you can silicone a new glass brace in its place but bowfront will be harder to fix. Id try and fix the crack or get a new top

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