UPDATE: Well, on Wednesday when this happened, I was able to purchase some purified drinking water (no distilled in store) as well as a "large globe" vase (its about 2 gallons) from the Target that is walking distance from my office. I mixed up some brackish water and then using my hand, scooped up some the gravel from the betta bowl and put it into the new vase. I then moved the plastic plants, shells, macro-algae and once piece of fosselized coral. The other fosselized coral had two many dead opae in the cracks and crevices . . . . ugh!
I then used a brine shrimp net and tried to scoop out all of the living opae. Wow, it was pretty tough and I have a new appreciation for just how hard it is to get them into a package for shipping. I also managed to save two or three snails who must have been imbedded in the gravel because they showed up later. I also added some Prime and API Quick Start.
When I was done catching the living opae, I turned the betta bowl over to dump out the remaining gravel and little water. Then I observed a huge crack in the bottem!! And no, I did not ever drop the bowl so the crack just appeared and then grew. I wrote a nasty review for the product on the Petsmart website and saw someone else had a similar experience a few weeks after I had purchased the betta bowl.
I think there are 5 -7 opae that are still living. They were pretty active the next day, picking at the gravel. I made more brackish water with distilled water this time and added it to the tank. I tested the water today and everything was fine. I was concerned that the living mirco organisms on the substrate would have died during the "drought" and cause an ammonia spike, but it was fine.
I will let this new tank "cycle" for a few weeks before even thinking of adding more opae and see if any opae die. I am really tired of dealing with dead opae. However, they are pretty remarkable creatures to have survived this ordeal . . . the distilled water I added after I discovered this problem also started to leak out right away. I was amazed when I saw swimming opae after adding the water.
Maybe someday I will think this is funny and laugh. It just caused a lot of stress that I did not need or want to deal with. But, considering everything, I was really LUCKY. Some opae survived and my laptop, two monitors, docking station, mouse, etc. sitting on the same desk as the betta bowl were not damaged by the gallon of leaking water. I considered buying a plastic container for a new tank but could not find one. Maybe I will continue to look . . .
Thanks for reading . . .
I still have my first "death vase" that was my first attempt at a tank and will try to use that as a temporary home . . .. 
These guys are the toughest shrimp to catch....by far. In any case, I'm glad you were able to get things under control and save a few shrimp. Yes, they are remarkable creatures and it's worth it to keep trying. The crack is *obviously* an unforseen complication, and not part of the usual chain of events when setting up an Opae ula tank. I doubt you'll be experiencing that again.
