The Water Bug that's been going around

[joseney21]

So I've worked two 16 hr work days with no sleep,maybe no real sleep in 3 days (except for the sleep i get in the ambulance).i'm pm'ing with nanoreefer about a trade we're planning on for friday.my wife says "come lay down with me"(she can't go to sleep as easily when i'm not in bed,get your dirty minds out of the gutter).i'm making water for a water change, after getting an awesome deal on some rock and coral from nilo.i know i'm going to fall asleep so i set my cell phone alarm to wake me up in 40 minutes (my water container is a 36g rubbermaid so i know it won't fillup in that time).next thing you know my baby is waking me up at three (THANK GOD)and my wife is asking why the cell phone alarm didn't go off.i reply very calmly "i had the phone on vibrate" she asks "what time is it?" i say "3 in the morning. why?" she says hurry up and go shut off the water the container must be overflowing".and sure enough it was, luckily the water was very low flow and my daughter woke me up just in time.maybe ten gallons must've overflowed(hopefully not enough to make it to my neighbor's apartment downstairs)and i've just spent the past 1/2 hr cleaning it up.

BE VERY CAREFUL DON'T GET BIT BY THE WATER BUG!!!

 

[Reef Guy]

ha cant tell you how many times that happened to me...well only twice, but the second time was the worse soaked over into the carpet which took a week to dry. And the only thing i was thinking was damn I wasted 15 gallons of filter cartridge. But i have learned since then

 

[Pseudo]

Duh... lol I know what you just went through. I just woke up at 4am the other day to a pool of water streaming under my bed. And it only took 30 minutes to get that way. My wood floors are buckled and I am going to have to do them over.

Which means breaking down the tank and putting it up twice.. I havent talked to you in a while. Got to catch up sometime. Try and get some sleep.

Kasei

 

[spykes]

heh, try just filling up 5 gallons bucket before you go to sleep, then you go to sleep and like 10 hrs later when you wake up, bam lol like 50 gallons of water on the floor....

 

[ShaunW]

I did the same thing but much worst!!

I left a 5 gallon container to be filled up with RO/DI water. Most of the time I place the container in my bathtub (just in case), but this time (fate) I didn't.

15 minutes later my girlfriend asks me if we are going to go out to dinner, I completely forgot about the water in my excitement to leave.

After 4 hours of drinking and eating at a local pub, I come home to my neighbors complaining about a water leak. The water had overflowed all the way to the basement through every floor (I live on the 4th floor). My neighbors had to shut off the water main to the whole building to stop the flow!!

Very embarrassing!!!!!!!!! and stupid!!!!!!!!!

 

[cali_reef]

I think is time for a group buy on these:

http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=KM1675
and one of these if you don't have one on your RC\DI
http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=KM1671

 

[aaron]

I do it every time i make water, Luckily my bucket sits in the laundry sink or my landlord would have thrown me out by now.

 

[joseney21]

shaun i have to say that your story sounds the worst by far.

 

[jhale]

cali, count me in on the float valve.
a couple of months ago my ro container overflowed, I went to sleep thinking there was plenty of room left. when I woke up of course the water was over the top.
by chance I was taking care of my neighbors dogs in the apt. below me. I went down to check the leak and got distracted by the dogs. when I remembered to look at the ceiling, sure enough there was some nice water damage. I spent the next four days fixing the ceiling, but could not figure out the paint color. fortunately the building leaked all the time, and their ceiling was already three different colors. they have since fixed all the leaks so I won't have any excuses from now on.

 

[jhale]

Jose, where the heck did all that water go?

When I first set up a reeftank back in the day, I had it in a girlfriends apt. we shared it. We had one of those little hang-on air driven POS skimmers. Well the thing would overflow once in a while. She lived on the first floor, I have no idea where the water would go because no one ever complained. It would be at least two or three gallons, enough to notice.

 

[joseney21]

that's a good one jonathan...btw, are you still coming to paintball??we could talk skimmers then, david is coming as well.david said he's also going against the grain and shooting for the wetneck with diffuser,lol.Join the rebels

VIVA LA RESISTAANCE

 

[ShaunW]

It is good to know that I am not the only one flooding buildings!

Jonathan that's pretty funny fixing the water leak without them knowing! that's the best situation.

My neighbors said it was raining from their ceiling during my incident, water following the path of least resistance. I just hate trying to explain to my neighbors about such incidences, talk about hot spot .

 

[jhale]

Shaun, I told the neighbors what happened when they got back,
they were so happy I had watched the dogs they did not care. Also the ceiling had leaked so many times from the rain, my little leak was no big deal.
In fact just a few weeks ago I reported that one of my large radiators was leaking water, they took five days to send a plumber, by then it was too late, it flooded three apartments below me. It cost them 4K to fix all the ceilings.

Jose, I meant to call you, I'm not going to be able to do paintball this week. Sunday is going to be the one of the few days I take off for the next few weeks, and that's so I can do the flages and clean my tank. I have another project with a looming deadline, so I'm busting my butt to get it finished on time. After May I'll have more time to do fun things, that will include paintball!

 

[joseney21]

cool, NP.will you be home tonight or tomorrow??i was thinking about dropping off the acrylic.

 

[jhale]

I'll be home at 6pm

lmk.

 

[joseney21]

cool, i'll give you a call to let you know when i'll be around.

 

[wedfr]

you can get float valves from usplastic for 6 or 7 bucks. They work great.

ive overflowed buckets, sump, trashcans numerous times.

You cna also go with a float switch and a solenoid

 

[House of Laughter]

Dreams of Water on my face!!

Ok, I just have to chime into this thread with my "water bug" story (thanks Jose for starting this thread).

I am not sure if you all remember my "tree falling on the house" incident, but this story starts at that point.

I had the roof work done on the house, since then things have not been right. In addition to the roof, we recently renovated the basement (mucho casho and is where the new tank will be). These two changes are the foundation to the story:

The basement renovations were just about done the day we had that really bad rain (about 3 weeks ago) - I was making RO/DI water that day, and when I came down into the basement, there it was - water coming out from behind the walls: Now, I thought immeidately that it was the plumbing for the RO/DI Unit and was freaking out, cause I thought I'd have to rip out the brand new wall!! FREAKIN OUT!!

Turns out, the leader (downspout) from the new gutters (which run under the ground) was never replaced and crushed from the tree falling. So the water backed up the downspout, and overlfowed the gutter - which in turn drained along the frame of the house, down the foundation and then into the basement - the good news was that it was not the RO/DI drain plumbing (whew) and after we ripped a small portion of the brand new wall out, we figured out it was coming inf from the foundation (bad news). That night, I decided to clean my skimmer and upgrade the pump cause I noticed it wasn't really producing much flow/skimmate etc. So, I cleaned the skimmer and replaced the pump with a mag 5 - thought it was a great idea. Next morning - nice day, no rain, go into the basement and BAM!!!!! - there was a flood of water running from the new fish room into the basement drain :-( I was freaking out - again thinking it was the RO/Di unit etc. Went into the new room and saw the water coming from the ceiling - old tank is right about the fish room. Ran upstairs, saw that my skimmer overflow container was full and the under the tank floor was soaked. The new pump was too much power and making super wet skimmate - turns out 12 gallons worth. After fixing the problem it rained like the dickens the next day - good news no water in the basement - and nothing freaking out from my skimmer (replaced the pump with the original mag 3) and the RO/DI drain works without flaws!!

Next day, I come home from work and rest my head back in my chair and 1/2. Looking up I see these spots onthe ceiling - I think it's something my son threw up there like yogurt or something - then I notice they are sequentially arranged and spaced - and scream out F**K - I run upstairs and open the crawl space and find a puddle of water in the cieling crawl space - I run back downstairs and notice the water has streaked the front wall of the house. I call the insurance agent, they set a time to come and look.

Next day (now 5 days) I am sitting in the bathroom and look up at the painting I have to do, this bathroom was part of the house renovations (big dollars). I see a crack in the brand new ceiling and water stains along the crack. Now, I have the contractor, the roofer and the insurance company all coming to my house.

That Saturday morning, after all the stress of this crap, I fell asleep on the couch. I am dreaming that water is dripping my my face and I wake up smacking myself in the face.

Safe to say HAVE THE WATER BUG!!!

Rooofer came this morning to fix the roof, the gutter and the interior problems. Sigh!!!

House

 

[joseney21]

Wow!!sounds like you went through hell and back Jim.hope everything works out.i would've gone mad with all that happening. my wife would've probably killed me, although only one leak was tank related.

 

[House of Laughter]

Jose, yeah, I have to give my wife creidt where it's due - this stuff can be maddening! So much that it caused bad dream :-(

All dry now, though and stoked about setting up this weekend.

Jim