AQUAN8TOR
01/19/2005, 12:57 PM
So, I'm finally of sane and stable enough mind to tell everyone about my misfortunes as of late.
I went away this past weekend to spend time with a girl I'm dating, and came back to a nasty odor upon opening my front door.
To my surprise, I heard no water sounds. Took a couple minutes, but what I found was this:
a pump in my xenia culture (CA 800) apparently seized, overheated, and cracked. It tripped a GFCI (thank god it didn't start a fire), which caused my battery backup to kick on. What I didn't take into account was....I have my lights and heater on a different circuit than the GFCI. The battery backup has about 30 hrs or so of power. (3x120 Amp-hour lead-acid batteries and a Tripp-Lite APS-612). The backup ran out of power before I returned home. During such time, since the return pump stopped working, the heater probe in the sump registered cold, and turned on the heater. Problem is, the heater is 18" long and won't fit between the baffles in my sump. I had placed it in my 110g, which reached 96 degrees. Needless to say, mass death.
Every fish, shrimp, many snails, and many corals are gone from my 110. Several acroporas in the other tanks are also gone, and all my xenia. I've changed the equivalent of the entire volume a couple times over; it no longer looks like skim milk. I neglected to mention that after I got the returns moving again that all of my 10 clams decided to spawn due to the stress. It looked like someone poured a cup (or gallon) of milk into the system. Extra nutrients galore.
I guess this is a lesson in buying quality, but I can't really afford to buy streams for everything. Cmoresps is a hero for letting me bring all my sps that survived to his system sunday night for temporary housing.
I'd like to leave some profound words of wisdom, but I don't have any. Just don't be careless, and guano happens!! (My band actually has an album of that title). I'm just thankful I didn't have a fire.:)
I went away this past weekend to spend time with a girl I'm dating, and came back to a nasty odor upon opening my front door.
To my surprise, I heard no water sounds. Took a couple minutes, but what I found was this:
a pump in my xenia culture (CA 800) apparently seized, overheated, and cracked. It tripped a GFCI (thank god it didn't start a fire), which caused my battery backup to kick on. What I didn't take into account was....I have my lights and heater on a different circuit than the GFCI. The battery backup has about 30 hrs or so of power. (3x120 Amp-hour lead-acid batteries and a Tripp-Lite APS-612). The backup ran out of power before I returned home. During such time, since the return pump stopped working, the heater probe in the sump registered cold, and turned on the heater. Problem is, the heater is 18" long and won't fit between the baffles in my sump. I had placed it in my 110g, which reached 96 degrees. Needless to say, mass death.
Every fish, shrimp, many snails, and many corals are gone from my 110. Several acroporas in the other tanks are also gone, and all my xenia. I've changed the equivalent of the entire volume a couple times over; it no longer looks like skim milk. I neglected to mention that after I got the returns moving again that all of my 10 clams decided to spawn due to the stress. It looked like someone poured a cup (or gallon) of milk into the system. Extra nutrients galore.
I guess this is a lesson in buying quality, but I can't really afford to buy streams for everything. Cmoresps is a hero for letting me bring all my sps that survived to his system sunday night for temporary housing.
I'd like to leave some profound words of wisdom, but I don't have any. Just don't be careless, and guano happens!! (My band actually has an album of that title). I'm just thankful I didn't have a fire.:)