chipped tank --is it toast?

[Judi]

I had a tank sitting outside on the patio until I could make room for it in the basement, and just today my husband knocked against it with a propane tank.

Here's a (not great) pic. What do you think? Is it toast? Sorry, I don't know why the picture is sideways.

[plant57va]

It is hard to see how deep the chip is but I would think you will be ok... the chip doesn't go as deep as the inside of the seal does it???

so that you don't cut yourself on the spot, I would take a dab of silicone, goop it in the spot and use some clear tape and cut it narrow enough where it doesn't go much past 1/4" from the corner, and just tape over the silicone...
just cosmetic and for safety sake not much value...

[Judi]

No, it doesn't go into the seal at all. So I thought it might be OK, but then started to overthink it (because that's what I do best), and wonder if I was indulging in wishful thinking.

[plant57va]

I meant to ask
How large is the tank?
that would also have a bearing on what i would do..

[Judi]

It's a 50 gallon.

[JLW]

While you'll /probably/ be okay.
One gallon of water will cover 231 square inches to 1" deep. So, 50 gallons will cover 11,550 square inches, or an 8' x 10' room to a depth of a full inch. Yowch.
A 50-gallon tank is not a particularly large, or expensive tank... I think I would invest in another one. You've got a weak point in the glass, and that chip can spread over time. Someone else bumps the tank lightly, a big truck drives by and shakes the whole house, whatever, and that chip will spread like a windshield star. And when that happens...

Woosh, you have a (small) room filled to a depth of an inch with water, and that's a lot of water damage. Plus, you have a bunch of dead fish.

Get a new tank.

[plant57va]

So... my question, while it should have been first, is setting the parameters here....
I agree with Josh, for a 50 gal tank, depending on where you have it... (if in a basement with a drain, no problem, but on a finished floor, he makes a valid point..)
I would just get a new one and use this for a terrarium or something low stress... I think when Petco runs their $1/gallon sale they don't sell their big tanks that way but they do put them on sale.... Or keep on the lookout for a used but in good condition one....

[Judi]

You've got a weak point in the glass, and that chip can spread over time. Someone else bumps the tank lightly, a big truck drives by and shakes the whole house, whatever, and that chip will spread like a windshield star. And when that happens...

Woosh, you have a (small) room filled to a depth of an inch with water, and that's a lot of water damage. Plus, you have a bunch of dead fish.

Get a new tank.

Yikes. I guess that's what I was worried about, but I was hoping I was just being a nervous Nellie.

Looks like I'm getting a new tank. Rather, my husband is getting me a new tank, since he's the one who ruined this one.

[JLW]

Several years ago, we took over a maintenance account for a tank that had been ... creatively installed. (That's a polite way to say the morons who designed this thing had no business installing tanks anywhere). It used a sump, and the return was just, plop, at the bottom, through a bulkhead, tossing the substrate over. It wasn't a big tank, I think 60-65 gallons. About a week after we took it over, after I told the customer that it had to be redone, entirely, he had a power failure.

The tank backfilled through the sump, and most of its volume spilled onto the floor. Second floor bedroom. It destroyed the cabinet it was on, warped the floors, ruined a rug, soaked down through the walls and destroyed the ceiling of the kitchen, got into appliances and destroyed them... AND then it soaked through into the basement, and destroyed stuff stored there. Literally had to have walls knocked down and replaced, floorboards, including the underfloor replaced, appliances, etc. He also lost all the fish in the tank (duh). If you've ever spilled a big bucket of fish tank water, you also know there's a difference between it and "Oh dear, I overfilled the bathtub." It smells, well, fishy.

All told, he had close to $100,000 in damages (I know: his homeowners insurance took us to court).

Moral of the story. Don't eff around with potential water damages.

As an FYI, the tank was originally set up for saltwater, but it couldn't keep a damsel alive -- we had swapped it to freshwater. Can you imagine if it was still salt when this happened?

[Judi]