Last night, I posted a topic stating that I had some algae problems and jokingly stated that perhaps I should drain my tank. Well, someone above read the thread and allowed the outflow hose of my cannister filter which had carbon and phophate sponge in it to fall on my $35,000 rec room Mahogany floor. Subsequently, my entire 500g tank was drained overnight, killing about $40,000 in livestock and burning out most of my Iwaki pumps. There you go! Too bad I'm not writing this on paper or you guys would notice the tears soaking the paper.
Poorly placed cannister cost me $75,000
- Thread starter texman
- Start date
Holy Crap! Having problem myself with canisters before (a similar accident, but was found early enough), i have never included canister in my shopping list ever, never.
Could all these goes into insurance coverage? By the way, are you married? Have you been grounded to never touch fish tanks again?
(BTW, I have been grounded to never keep fish in my house again......that's why I moved them to my office.....)
[ March 09, 2002: Message edited by: danmhippo ]</p>
Could all these goes into insurance coverage? By the way, are you married? Have you been grounded to never touch fish tanks again?
(BTW, I have been grounded to never keep fish in my house again......that's why I moved them to my office.....)
[ March 09, 2002: Message edited by: danmhippo ]</p>
This is my worst nightmare. I have a very similar setup to yours. I have a 40KW generator, 580 gallon tank etc... and I would just die. My biggest fear is that one of my pipes glued into the back bulkheads fails. If one of those come out the tank will be empty in about 15 minutes. I hope it never happens. The only good thing about my setup is it would all drain into my garage and out onto the driveway.
I feel really bad for you. Hope you don't give up.
Jeff
I feel really bad for you. Hope you don't give up.
Jeff
I've wet vac'd the floor and went out and bought industrial fans to try to dry the wood before it heaves. I refilled half the tank with tap water and added salt, but my temp is now 65 degrees. I knocked all the corals which were sitting on top into the water and have put in several heaters and powerheads. My whole house smells like dead acropora though. I figure I've spent about 2000hrs playing with this tank and twice that much in reading and thinking about how to improve it. I have a 30kW automatic backup generator installed at the side of my house just in case I would have had a power failure, so that my circulation and lights are not interrupted. I have backup pumps and many other expensive and well thought out safety mechanisms in place. I did not even consider that the outflow hose from the temporary cannister (I only planned on it running for about 8 hrs overnight last night) could slip out of the tank and fall on the floor. The intake from the cannister was also initially at the very top of the tank, but somehow ended up on the very bottem, leaving only about 1" of water in the bottem when I woke up this morning. My wife generally does not like my tank since I spend more time with it than her, and more money on it then her BMW, but I have to say that she is very supportive. Thank you guys for the support as well. I will keep you updated!
Po, I did not take any pictures, nor will I take any in the near future. I do not want any memories of this nightmare. I have refilled the tank now with tap water and kitchen grade RO and have the skimmer back online. The smell is terrible in my house. It's like putting 700 or 800 lbs of uncured rock in a water bath. I was able to save a few fish by transferring them to my office tank (which was already filled to capacity), but all fish which were still in the main tank are now dead except for 2 clown fish. Unfortunately, the host anemone for the clowns is dead. My main problem is that there are no decent LFS's close by to help me out and there is nobody else in town that I know of that has a reef tank! To make matters worse, I have a job which requires me to work on the weekend and I have not been able to spend as much time as I would like trying to remove dead stuff!
Boy I can understand the work thing. I am also a Doc and It would take me a month to get enough spare time to clean up a mess like that. I know exactly where you are coming from. I also know about not having anybody around that knows about reefs. We don't even have a pet store that sells dogs here let alone fish stuff.
Jeff
Jeff
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