Thanks for all of the kind words of condolences.
This certainly isn't how we wanted to put more life into the thread, but here we are, so let's discuss how to move forward.
The key to Peter's success thus far has been the ability to recover from adversity. The experience with his aquarium has been no different. When a disaster of this grad scale happens, there really is no time to deal with the shock. I find that smaller hurdles where you know you made a mistake are much harder to deal with. I got the call from Peter at 11:00pm and it was already too late to do anything about it.
Peter gave a good description of how it played out, so I won't bother going through that nightmare story again. When I arrived on scene for the emergency, there was no water in the tank, just wet sand. The short leg of the L shaped aquarium is 8' long. There was a six foot section of the bottom seam on that side that had completely delaminated and was now hanging past the bottom panel. A crack had formed on each side of the failed seam where the pressure became too much after the rupture. It looks like it popped and drained extremely fast. The floor drain exported the water amazingly well, considering the volume and speed at which it played out. An our after the incident, one would never guess there was a flood of that magnitude.
We would have liked to share the news earlier, but Peter needed some time to tai to the insurance company and the manufacturer in question. Peter will be able to update the community on how that played out. All I can comment on with regard to that is it is not going to be an easy path to travel.
What I can say is the tank has been an incredible teacher and with that knowledge we intend to move forward. As much as these incidents make it easy to just walk away with your heart on the floor, Peter thoroughly enjoyed the aquarium up to the last day. One of my last memories with Peter and the aquarium in all of its splendour was helping him feed his prized dwarf moray eel. His fish collection was the best I have seen anywhere in one aquarium. It truly was an incredible site to see.
I find the best way to put these learning experiences behind you is to gather the lessons you have learned and focus on how to rebuild even better. The chance to start all over is sometimes a blessing in disguise.
I have put together some of the photos of the tank that I have taken over the past five years as it matured. I only hope that there is an equally impressive picture show at my wake (many, many years form now). :beer:
Here are some pictures I took the night of the disaster.
If I didn't see it for myself, I wouldn't believe 1500 gallons was drained onto this floor only an hour earlier.
