What can happen, will.

[minh_han]

Two mornings ago, I woke up and went downstairs to find my sump was almost completely drained of water. Skimmer pump was pumping air. There was barely enough water in the sump to keep my return pump from doing the same. Water was on the floor. Horrified, I ckecked the overflow tubes, and sure enough, one of them had a snail that had crawled down and lodged there. Well, as it turns out, that wasn't the problem. Before I went to bed, I had increased the amount of air mix on the skimmer. Well, apparently it was too much. Not only did it skim WAY more than needed, the tube also came out of the tupperware bowl that I was using to collect skimmate. The bottom of the stand was filthy with black skimmate and had overflowed onto the floor.

Last night, I went to New Haven to watch fireworks and ended up spending the night there. At 5 AM, I woke up suddenly, remembering that I had forgotten to turn off the RO/DI filter before I left at 6 pm for New Haven. WEll, I didn't get back until about 1 pm, so the RO/DI was running for almost a whole day. Fortunately, I had put the 5 G bucket in the bathtub to fill it, so I didn't come home to 60 gallons of water on the hardwood floors.

What can happen, will. Fortunately, nothing permanently bad happened.

Hope your 4th was good. :)

[dburr]

About the water, been there done that..... I did have water in the finished basement.:o My wife was p.o.ed.

[eifert]

This is why I can't have a Ref. I would just flood the whole place...

[minh_han]

Because of this, I'm thinking about making my 38G that I just got from Paul (for seahorses later on maybe) sumpless and refugiumless. It's less opportunity for water to go where it shouldn't. I haven't figured it all out yet though, so we'll see.

[ez1ez]

Seems to me that you were hit hard by Murphy's law. Sorry to hear about the mess. :eek2:

[minh_han]

Well, it could have been much worse. Thanks for the sentiments.

[Bruce]

Ouch.

One of the first things they teach in a lab is to always fill from the RO system in the sink. Forgeting to turn it off happens to everyone. Good thing you were in the tub!

Bruce

[ladymagicka]

:( This hobby is a whole new world, that I never would have guessed took so much heart.......<<< minh >>>:(

[mig29]

Minh...

Sorry to read your bad news. It sounds like you recovered well, and had no damage to any pumps or other equipment. I hope that is the case. As another new reefer, I can agree with Ladymagicka....I never knew how much heart and persistence this hobby actually takes.

Good luck, and to you know where with Murphy and his law.

Len

[ctreefer]

That RODI thing.....Its amazing how many times I forget to turn that off. Don't think I'll ever be able to finish off the basement
either.

As far as the skimmer goes, I'm not sure Minh, but is your
tupperware bowl located over your sump? I place my overflow
for my skimmer inside my sump so that when it does overskim
the excess will just go back into the system.

Water and houses don't make good couples!

[wetone]

I could tell you about the time I was doing a water change and the check valve on the pump return failed to close fully because of a small snail shell lodged in there. My sump is in another room from my tank and I was at the tank cleaning glass and siphoning water. When my daughter came to me and said those magic words " Dad, theres water all over the floor".
My quick 5 gal water change turned into a 25 gal change and a major floor cleanup.

Murphy seems to get all of us once in a while....it happens Minh!!

[eifert]

One day I got home to find one of the water pumps of my tank fell off the side glass and was shooting water out of the tank! Onto and electrical outlet! The outlet was sparking and but the water kept putting out the fire! Oh my god, I was lucky I didn't have a huge disaster!

Went and got those electrical outlets they put in Bathrooms and installed it. I think now if water hits it it will just short out.