Hugo's tank dilution?

[Kalkbreath]

Can any of you think of a scenerio in which one could decrease the salinity of a 500 gallon system by fifty percent with only access to the sump? But here is the catch..........without the sump overflowing at least a thousand gallons?
Secondly doesnt it take 1500 gallons of fresh to dilute 500 gallons to fifty percet salinity by over filling the system?
The only way I can see it possible would be to remove 250 gallons and replace with freshwater.
But Eric seems to be sure it all took place from outside the house at the remote sump?
Again Im missing something?
http://www.marinedepot.com/FORUMS/Topic32610-9-1.aspx

 

[dizzy]

It's too bad about his tank. His last quote is noteworthy. I wonder what he learned at IMAC? :?:

Eric writes: "I am typing from my room at IMAC. It is 4am and I cannot sleep for the things i have learned and heard in the past hours. I am grateful to all of you for your many well wishes and offer, the countless pm's and emails. I thank you all for your sympathy. But, I really must close this thread and in fact, close this chapter of my life. "

 

[cardinal]

That whole story is very strange. Remote sump? Where is it ....outside the house? Someone would have to break in his house and then do a 400 gallon water change? Too weird. If someone is going to be that vindictive there are a lot easier ways than doing a 400 gallon water change. Maybe I'm not watching enough CSI but things just don't add up.

 

[StevenPro]

His sump is outside of his house in a shed. There are clearly photographed salt stains (Eric gave them a taste test) at the end of a french drain that runs directly past this shed with the sump in it. The sump does not have a leak and to the best of my knowledge continues to operate to this day.

 

[Anonymous]

Well depending upon the size of the sump, you mention 500 gallon system, so if he had one of those 300 gallon (or some series of) rubbermaid troughs you could easily do it by siphoning the contents out, and filling it back up with a garden hose.

Thing is if you did with the garden hose you should be able to test that scenario if you test for chlorine shouldnt you? Or would the salt interfer? (similar ions?)

 

[Kalkbreath]

I KANT help but bring in some KALKUlas..
Still have not found a scenario in which one could dilute the tanks salt level by fifty percent only using the the sump?
Not without overflowing the sump and spilling over a 1500 gallons.(and this water would be so diluted the salt level would not be evident when dried)
I have overfilled my tank at home and flooded the house several times.
It takes a lot more then half the tanks volume to dilute it by 50%.(Because most of the additional fresh water spills out)
as one is filling, when the sump becomes full it begins to overflow.
as it spills out both old saltwater and depending on flow most of the new fresh input spills out.
In the beginning, the tanks pump is mixing the new water and the old saltwater inside the aquarium. But its an accumulative process. It takes time do decrease the salt level in the tank because some of the old alt water is being returned to the aquarium.
Depending onthe flow, most of the new fresh water overflows the sump and is not mixed into the tank (if the influx is more then the tanksrecirculation pump( Its the tanks pump which is actually filling the inside aquarium NOT the Garden house)
If the new fresh water is a tiny trickle, it takes hours and hours to dilute a 500 gallon system by fifty percent.
If someone was to stick a house into the sump they would most likely turn the faucet up full open. This would cause the system to overflow rapidly and most of the water would spill out of the sump and into the yard.
Since its the return pump which is actually returning water into the tank,
a person cant input any more water into the house tank per minute then this pump will discharge.
and the return overflow back to the sump is equal to that flow.
It stands to reason that x gallons per hour returned plus x gallons of new fresh water.... Minus the water being pumped back into the tank , is a lot more then 250 gallons. Its more in the range of 1500 gallons
In fact the water that would have found its way into the French drain would have actually had very little salt in it because it would ahve been about 75% fresh water . We know that no mare then 250 gallons of salt water is missing and we know that in an overflow the sump scenario that most of the overflow water would ahve been fresh water with a little salt water mixed in every minute.
Water with only one-fourth salt level would leave only the tinyist of residue at the curbside?

 

[Anonymous]

One could stick a hose on the intake to the return pump and siphon the water coming from the tank out of the sump.

 

[JennM]

Interesting and sad conundrum indeed.

I don't do Kalkulus so I'm not even going to speculate... except to say that *IF* it was sabotage, it may have been easier to do, but to have done so would have made the sabotage much more obvious - such as contaminating the tank with copper or chemicals. We've all heard about (or in some instances been victims of) stuff like that happening. I remember about 5 years ago, a store was broken into, some specimens tanken and the rest of the organisms killed with soap in the store's sell tanks. This was locally, and sent waves of anger through the hobbyist community here.

Whatever happened to Eric's tank, it's taking quite a bit of time to unravel the mystery, that's for sure.

I glanced over the thread and it looks like it took 9 days to get the police involved. I can't speak for how I would have handled things, but I'd probably have called them immediately if I'd ruled out equipment failure... but again it's easy to sit on the sidelines and quarterback.

Any senseless loss of life is tragic. I hope Eric gets to the bottom of what caused this, no matter what or whom it was, for his own sake.

Jenn

 

[dizzy]

I don't do Kalkulus so I'm not even going to speculate... except to say that *IF* it was sabotage, it may have been easier to do, but to have done so would have made the sabotage much more obvious - such as contaminating the tank with copper or chemicals. Jenn

So you think someone might have been trying to mess with his head. Not only was the intent to kill his beloved corals, but to also make him think it was his own fault. How diabolical. :evil:

 

[Anonymous]

Still have not found a scenario in which one could dilute the tanks salt level by fifty percent only using the the sump?

What if the sump is 50% of the total system volume?

Step 1: Drain sump completely via siphon, return pump runs dry for a bit, so what (heck you could unplug if you wanted!

Step 2: Refill with garden hose

End result: diluted salt content by 50%

But yeah, too many ways something could have been done easier, not to mention siphoning 250gallons of water out would take a while unless you had a really wide diameter pipe, if you wanted to sabotage I'd think you'd want to be in and out quickly... unless you knew the wife & he wasn't going to be home for a long time.

 

[StevenPro]

If you pull the drain lines from the sump, the pump would do the work of emptying the sump for you and in relatively little time if it was large enough, which is likely given the overall size of the system. Then filling with a garden hose is a simple enough matter.

The beauty of this plan/theory, is the saboteur does not have to carry anything with them. No gallons of bleach or copper or whatever. You carry nothing suspicious if you are seen by neighbors. Just a guy going for a walk. Just walk up and into the privacy/concealment of the shed, yank the drain lines, and then use Eric's own garden hose to wreck his tank.

By the way, I do have an alibi.

 

[dizzy]

If you pull the drain lines from the sump, the pump would do the work of emptying the sump for you and in relatively little time if it was large enough, which is likely given the overall size of the system. Then filling with a garden hose is a simple enough matter.

The beauty of this plan/theory, is the saboteur does not have to carry anything with them. No gallons of bleach or copper or whatever. You carry nothing suspicious if you are seen by neighbors. Just a guy going for a walk. Just walk up and into the privacy/concealment of the shed, yank the drain lines, and then use Eric's own garden hose to wreck his tank.

By the way, I do have an alibi.

I believe you could easily carry enough concentrated copper sulfate or potassium permanganate in your front pants pocket to wipe the tank.

 

[Kalkbreath]

Eric stated that no water seemed to have overflowed in the sump shed?
If water escaped there then the telltale salt water residue should have been found there as well.
if salt was seen at the curb even after having filtered through the grass and soil of the yard, then salt and a wet sump shed would seem to have been found there as well.
Also , if the tank was cloudy and corals sloffing off inside the tank when Eric found them........would not the Skimmer be overflowing like mad?Sounds like the skimmer would have had to be involved sometime during this event, even if it was only the last few hours when the corals started to deteriorate.
Was the refill replacing this water being removed by the big skimmer? My big skimmers will drain 200 gallons in twenty minutes if miss adjusted or when something in the system sets off theskimmer like dead corals or stress coat.
Also was there chlorine in the tank?
If this was tap water from an outside hose, would the fish survive a 250 to 1500 gallon insurge of Chlorine? Or was this new additional fresh water filtered?
Fish survived.=no chlorine
No wet sump.=water drained elsewhere
Big ass skimmer =where does skimmer drain to?
and a auto refiller= means when Eric found the tank fowled with rotting corals his skimmer had to have reacted to this nutirent rich condition and began to kick ito high gear.it was not shooting bubbles otherwise Eric would have metionedit.
Then the auto top off replaced what the skimmer removed?
If the auto fill could keep up with the overactive Skimmer , then could it have been the origial source of fresh water?

 

[Kalkbreath]

Im not trying to kick someone when their down.
It just that this event may be a good case in point for others to learn from.
why its not such a good idea to place all your eggs (corals) in one basket(aquarium) and why Auto top off systems are trouble in the making if you have a big skimmer or an other leak in your tank.

 

[Anonymous]

Also , if the tank was cloudy and corals sloffing off inside the tank when Eric found them........would not the Skimmer be overflowing like mad?

If the salinity was reduced that much wouldn't the skimmer not work properly at all? I'm not sure at what point bubble size diminishes to the point of being useless at all, but I do know there's a reason why you don't use a skimmer on a freshwater tank (it won't work ), perhaps a skimmer wouldn't work on an ultra-hyposalinity quarantine type tank as well (ie low salinity).

Good point about the chlorine though, perhaps it was pumped from a personal well? (I don't know what part of the country he lives), or maybe he has enough carbon running that it would neutralize a good amount of the chlorine. How long until fish start showing signs? I know that it blocks the oxygenation of their blood or something maybe they will die over a longer time.

And on my side I'm not trying to defend the guy, just when something massive happens you usually run around trying to fix things in a hurry rather than look for clues as to why it happened, in the process perhaps destroying evidence. *shrug* Eitherway if it was self-inflicted, automated-inflicted, or sabotage it sucks to lose all your stuff.

 

[pyrrhus]

I have the dubious honor of turning a 1000g tank into a brackish water system, with the exact same scenario that Kalk just detailed. Massive ETSS skimmer misadjusted + 300GPD ATO + Floor drain = SG 1.008 before a problem could be noticed. Luckily it was a FO not a reef and most of the fish made it.

 

[JennM]

I don't do Kalkulus so I'm not even going to speculate... except to say that *IF* it was sabotage, it may have been easier to do, but to have done so would have made the sabotage much more obvious - such as contaminating the tank with copper or chemicals. Jenn

So you think someone might have been trying to mess with his head. Not only was the intent to kill his beloved corals, but to also make him think it was his own fault. How diabolical. :evil:

I'm not really speculating one way or another. The only "facts" as I know them are that something happened to Eric's tank and most of his organisms died.

*IF* it was sabotage (speaking strictly hypothetically now), it was a smart way to do it, even if it was time consuming - because anything else would have been obvious -- copper, chemicals, soap, too much salt etc... would have been a no-brainer.

Whether it's a mechanical failure or a deliberate act by someone, it's got everybody talking and many people speculating... "reasonable doubt" as it were.

I just hope he figures it out one way or another. If it was a mechanical failure of some kind, I hope it's discovered before he (eventually) restocks the tank. If it was sabotage, I hope the responsible party(ies) are brought to justice.

Jenn

 

[StevenPro]

I have the dubious honor of turning a 1000g tank into a brackish water system, with the exact same scenario that Kalk just detailed. Massive ETSS skimmer misadjusted + 300GPD ATO + Floor drain = SG 1.008 before a problem could be noticed. Luckily it was a FO not a reef and most of the fish made it.

The problem with this scenario is Eric's RO/DI is only a 50 gpd model.

 

[JennM]

I have the dubious honor of turning a 1000g tank into a brackish water system, with the exact same scenario that Kalk just detailed. Massive ETSS skimmer misadjusted + 300GPD ATO + Floor drain = SG 1.008 before a problem could be noticed. Luckily it was a FO not a reef and most of the fish made it.

The problem with this scenario is Eric's RO/DI is only a 50 gpd model.

If the RO membrane isn't seated properly it will pour out "product" water that isn't any good because it hasn't passed through the membrane. I've seen that happen with a client who replaced his membrane but didn't install it correctly.

Still it would take a hell of a long time for that much water to come out of one of those little icemaker water lines out of an RO, even if that did malfunction.

Mysterious indeed.

Jenn

 

[Kalkbreath]

Would the culprit think Eric wouldn't catch the low salinity thing.
Using copper would have been faster less likely to be caught in the act.
(an hour of water draining vrs one-second copper addition seems a stretch.)
What if the influx of water had begun prior to the morning Eric left for work?
If it started gradually the days before then reached the threshold that day while at work.
To guage what effect short term low salinity might have on corals, I did a test last night and placed some brown out SPS corals in fifty percent lowered Salinity. for six hours......
Guess why Im on the current band wagon?
No death, coral look like poop but no RTN and they seem like they will recover now that I replaced them back into a full salted system.
Try it yourself....can a few hours of lowered salinity bring a tank down that quick?
Six hours is what I tested for , but if that what happened with Hugos tank that would mean the exchange took place minutes after Eric went to work, an hour to exchange the water, then three hours of low salinity then two hours of coral RTN and the the Jaw droping return home.
What time was the house vacant?If two hours later then the time line cold not have taken place. Would corals deteriorate within one or two hours of lowered salinity.
.
But if your inside the house and your pissed off enough to hang around for an hour sucking on a hose , as its draining you more then likely would taint the other systems in the house as well, smear feces on the wall and dance in Hugos undies with glee.....not focus your mayhem on one tank.Maybe its just me......or maybe I just hate the idea of auto top off
Since Eric is coming to town in a few days I will lay off the subject.
Also after he kicks my A** for all I have posted here, I will most likely need to offer him some free corals for restocking....... :wink: