Pot Roast`s 240 Gallon Leaking Tank Fix Thread

OK I promised myself I would document my 'repair build' for the board so here it goes.
Sometime last winter my tank sprang a leak at the base of the tank. It was a very slight leak.....sometimes it didn't leak at all. Most times it just leaked a little, so little the water would evaporate before it hit the floor or ran down my stand. So I never really did anything about it because I figured it would be a major PITA to tear down my tank and fix it. And because I was in denial that it was even happening.
Well, a couple months ago it started to leak a lot more. I would get water in my stand, on my floor, etc. It was driving me crazy considering I had just refinished my  hardwood floors a year earlier, and I did it myself. I started to freak a little....always mopping up the floor and what not. I really let my tank go at this time because I knew a tear down was imminent...why bother fragging stuff or moving stuff or adding fish if I am just going to tear it all down. So I really became kinda bummed with my prediciment.....
So I started this project last Sunday, July 11th. Here is the before shot of my tank:

I'm really looking forward to clearing out some of the coral and taking out a lot of the rock. I am also considering SAND. Good Lord. What a horrible idea but we'll see....I am also prediciting an awesome aquascaping project in my future. I bought acrylic rods and epoxy so look out. I'm going to be higher than a Georgia Pine between the epoxy, denatured alcohol, pvc glue and of course beer during this project.

 

I started off the morning at about 7am. I cranked the coffee. At the time I thought Fish Brain would be over that evening so I wanted to get everything out of the tank and cleaned so we could start stripping silicone. As it turned out this project took me all day and I didn't even get all of the water out of it by the time I was finished. So I cancelled on Bill. (Thanks anyways Bill!)
Here is a pic of my tank. I got all the necessary equipment in place for when I came down off the coffee.

That was a shot of my tank upstairs....this shot is from my work room in my manhole, ahem, I mean my basement.

As you can see I have my QT tank ready for coral and fish. I removed my skimmers from my rubbermaid container so that I can add coral and fish in there. I also added a light above the rubbermaid. You may also notice a horrible hair algae outbreak in  my frag tank. Damn I hate that stuff....the only place I have this hair algae too.
And here is a pic of my workstation.

Notice the overkill on silicone, vinegar, and razor blades.

 

Thanks!

 

I took me all day to move my coral down to the basement. I had trouble getting a lot of the coral off the rocks. Most of them were just fused to the rock from a couple years of growth. I took my time as I had nothing else to do that day. It was rainy so I could work inside with no guilt. So I spent my day basically getting drunk and cranking my stereo at top volume.
 
   
I probably listened to three Phish shows that day. The two shows in Atlanta over the fourth were scorchers, if you are interested......
At the end of the day, this is what I had going....
Here is my rubbermaid, stocked with coral.

Here is the QT tank, with fish and coral.

And here is where I store my live rock. I just keep the water at room temp and aerate them.

I had hoped to have this setup running for a maximum of three days, but as I type now I am on day 9 in this setup. I am hoping my midas blenny is in one of these buckets. I think he took a ride in his hole in one of the rocks when I took it out. I forgot about the poor guy. I have a feeling he is toughing it out.

 

So I got the corals moved and the tank drained. At this point I was terrified of what my hardwood floors are going to look like. The tank had been leaking for six months and REALLY leaking for two of them. I assumed I was going to be refinishing the area under the tank but.....

as you can see there is just some crusty lines near the wall where the tank sat. The floors are FINE!!!!!! WOO HOO! I used that carpet dryer to completely dry the floor. There was some seepage between floorboards and the wood swelled a little. It is a little uneven back there right now, but I have an old house so it isn't that big of a deal really.

 

You might be wondering how I moved my tank away from the wall. I did it all by myself. I am not a huge man so I used a little mechanical advantage.....a car jack.

I basically used the jack to raise the tank and stand a little, then I slipped felt furniture sliders under each corner. At this point I can easily slide the tank and stand all around the room.

 

I use a similar system to raise the tank above the stand. This comes in useful when tightening bulkheads and adding new styrofoam under the tank. I use a suction cup handle on the glass and then attach the jack to the handle and start jacking. My tank weighs over 600lbs.

 

In the excitement of tearing down my tank, I went ahead and removed my bulkheads and overflow plumbing. In retrospect I have no idea why I did this. I ruined one bulkhead and also had to cut some pvc because it was stuck in it. Thank GOD that Bulk Reef Supply takes one day to get goods here. They have awesome plumbing parts and I recommend them for everything. I get a special discount because I order 3+ times per year and I write reviews of what I get. I have written some really awesome reviews....like this one:
item: Sch 80 bulkhead
review: 'This bulkhead fit my tank. My drainpipe screwed into it nicely and in a timely matter. The rubber gasget functions.'
Anyways, when I went to install the drain bulkhead, I noticed this damn chip in my hole that was not there before:

I assume I chipped it when I was agressively trying to remove the previous bulkhead with stuck pvc in it. Anyways, I installed the new bulkhead and it leaked like crazy. So I used the gasget on my old bulkead in addition to my gasget on my new bulkhead....a gasget on each side of the hole. This failed as well. One solution was to turn the bulkhead upside down, which stopped the leaking but presented me with other problems with the old plumbing schematic. So in the end, on advice from AJ, I just siliconed the hell out of my bulkhead and installed it. No leaks. Yet.

 

I just siliconed the bulkhead in place. I investigated fitting another piece of glass over it, but the glass company told me they would have trouble matching my template. I figured if the silicone didn't work I could always scrape it off. A quick glance over at RC showed this is a common problem. It is usually caused by drilling from the wrong side.

I figure that if it leaks down the road I will just fix it. It is in the overflow so I can do a fix with the tank setup and running.