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Last night I come home to find the front of my tank has cracked and a flood in my living room. Would any of you know why this would just happen out of the blue. The tank is in a safe place far away from any human traffic and I have no other pets. Lucky I could save all my fish as I got home just in the nick of time. This is a 300l tank or 4 footer.

1,2m length
600mm high
450mm wide
6mm thick glass
8mm glass struts at the top

Was the crack near the heater? Sometimes glass that is not particularly thick or expensively made can sometimes expand or retract radically in response to temperature, and that will cause cracking. Heaters ideally should be placed in filter flow, so that the heat is dispersed away from them, and distributed evenly. Sometimes the constant vibration and weight of a hob filter can crack them, and occassionally even wires and cords incorrectly placed between the hood and the glass can cause problems. Sometimes it merely takes a beam of intense sunlight to break glass under such pressure.

Other than that, its all the usual stuff like not having the tank level, when tanks go much over 30 gallon the weight is such that they should really be dead level, and checked using a spirit level. Not supporting the underneath of it with level foam across the entirety of the base plate may also cause cracking.

Sometimes its just damn bad luck, and you get a dodgy pane of glass.

With a tank that size the glass could have been thicker.

How old is the tank as aged tanks do funny things.
Is the rank sitting on at least 20mm styrene foam to take up any unevenness in the base it is sitting on. Even a slight house movement can causer this problem. If the tank was made without enough bracing stress can also happen. Another thing is cheap faulty/second hand glass this is a common cause.

Have a look in [link=My Profile] http://www.fishprofiles.com/forums/member.aspx?id=1935[/link] for my tank info

Look here for my
Betta 11Gal Desktop & Placidity 5ft Community Tank Photos

Keith

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