Broken tank

Sorry its been so long since I last posted, things have been busy related to the fish and other things.

I was trying to slide my tank a bit when all of the sudden I heard a pop. I thought I had broken the molding on the top of the tank but then realized that it was the glass. The glass had broken all the way down the right side of the tank! I grabbed the bowl I had gotten my betta in, scooped up some water from his tank and put him in. Then I transferred the shrimp into Bubble's tank, and finally the puffers. Luckily the leak was slow and no major damage was done. I took out most of the water, but after I got around 60% of it out there wasn't enough pressure on the glass to open the crack for any more leaking. I threw all the plants into the other tank along with the heater. Next, I transferred the filter and some of the top layer of rocks from the puffer tank. That way I could keep the bacteria alive and make sure there were enough bacteria in the tank.

I didn't really have a choice but to leave Zimmerman in the tank. I was worried about him but he made it fine. If the puffers had been more established they might have noticed him, but I think he is to fast for them anyways.

The next day I went out and bought a new tank, luckily 10 gallon tanks are cheap. I go the tank from Pet Smart although it is the exact same as the one that came in the kit from Walmart.

When I was putting stuff back in I decided to leave out the decorations, the puffers seem to fight over those and share the plants. I redid the tank quite a bit and added a shrimp cave.

I used the little plastic pots that a lot of the plants come in. I cleared out the gravel from the bottom where I wanted it, put it down and then filled it half way with gravel. Next I level out the gravel around it and sloped the gravel on the side of it so that it went over the top of the pots. I made sure that the bottom of the pots were pushed up against the glass, so that I could see through the cave to see if anything was in it.

I added the plastic grass that I have enough though it doesn't look that good. I didn't have anything else that I thought could sit in front of the filter outflow and it does an ok job of blocking some of the line of site in there.

After I had all the decorations right I added the shrimps and the puffers back into the tank. The shrimps went right to the shrimp cave and seem to enjoy it alot. The puffers did not recognize their new home and stayed in a group for quite a while. The bad news is that after they got comfortable they started to fight a lot. I had added the little guy and Puff first in hopes of them not getting picked on so much by Bug. However, it ended up with Bug and Puff fighting more viciously that they ever had before. I was really worried that they were going to get hurt, but eventually Puff decided to stop fighting.

Sadly Shrimpy who was very weakened after the bad plant, did not make it through the night. I have decided to name the last shrimp Jacque, he is doing ok, but I am worried that its too late for him and he is going to die in not too long. Since Shrimpy died Jacque doesn't swim hardly at all, doesn't spend much time in the shrimp cave and sits around cleaning himself alot.

The puffers are doing much better than the shrimps luckily. Bug and Puff swim around together a lot(at least until Bug gets grumpy with Puff). Its possible that Puff is a boy, it looks like he is growing a belly line. I was expecting the belly line to slowly darken not start small and grow longer, so maybe its just part of her coloration. Bug has claimed the middle of the tank, the little one has claimed the big grassy plant and Puff gets whichever side she gets chased to when Bug gets grumpy. I got Puff and Bug to eat some blood worms, they are still just sucking them out of their shells though. I couldn't get the little one to eat any, however I still see all of them with nice round stomachs at least once a day, so they are still finding food in the tank to eat.

I think I have learned some more about my heater. I think my original assumption was correct and that it is only heating when the room gets cold. However now I think the temperature it is set to might be accurate as well. I think my problem before might have been that if you turn the temperature up too much at once it locks on. I have slowly increased the temperature to about 79 degrees and it seems to be holding the tank at that temperature. Its good to know that it works, now I can spend my money on more plants rather than a new heater.