Bad Luck

[easttn]

I had my first flood upstairs since I put all the plumbing in the basement 3 years ago. A snail crawled over the overflow in the main tank and of course found his way to the durso. He got sucked in and clogged the pipe, of course this happened in the middle of the night. I lost at least 20 gals of water and had to add more water to the sump once the snail was removed. Immature I know, but I killed the bastar* snail. The area rug is still outside and it stinks. Yea my wife is real pleased with my hobby right now.

The water I added was not at tank temp, but I had no choice. This was all on Thursday. So far I lost my huge frogspawn that my clown hosted and my oldest saramentosa. The water is still not clear and I can only make 35GPD. The future of the trade in Jan is looking gloomy for me.

About a month ago I changed my lighting time and was really starting to see brighter colors in my SPS, all gone now. Nasty water and the shock treatment have returned the coral to where they were months ago. Water still has a funk smell and I'm going through the carbon. Fing snail.

I'm done whinning, thanks for listening.

Charles

[llpoolej]

OMG!!! Charles!! That is HORRIBLE. I don't think I can say much more than that. It just sucks. I think I would have fed the snail to my dogs.

[cee]

So sorry to hear that, Charles! These are fragile ecosystems we keep, beautiful when all is working and balanced, but one small "fly in the ointment" (or "snail in the overflow"), and the tides can turn quickly. Sorry for the puns, and truly sorry for your mishap.

Dave

[imsqueak]

Charles, I hate to hear that. I made my standpipe so the slot was bigger than the ring that allows water in it. But that didnt help. A pc of tubing somehow got in there then added snails and mine clogged but slowly so I knew something was up and caught it just before it flooded - by about 1/2" in my sump. I'm still recovering from kalk/ph and noticing the corals that had color are dead/or close to it but the brown ones are still kicking nicely.

[zanemoseley]

One thing you can do is set up your sump with baffles so the return pump portion only contains a couple gallons of water so if the overflow clogs only about 1-2 gal of water will overflow, you pump will run dry but its gonna do that regardless if you overflow 2 or 20 gallons, it will just take less time.

[Runner]

That's how I have my sump set up. Here is a picture:

http://home.earthlink.net/~aquariapics/DIY_Tank/CustomSump.jpg

Sorry about the tank. I just read your story to my wife and she rolled her eyes. She's not fond of my hobby, either.

[llpoolej]

Scott, Larry would like to know how you did your baffles that seperate the sump up. How did you attach them so they do not move.

He saw the photo and said "that is what I am trying to do".

Asked if it was just aquarium adhesive you used.

Sorry to derail the thread!

[Muttling]

Bummer!!!!!


If you need more RO/DI water let me know. I can put out 60 gpd and have 20 gallons sitting in a garbage can right now.

[Neowind]

Man that really sucks! That was the nicest Frogspawn I had ever seen! This hobby is really awsome and really painful at times.

[Runner]

Originally posted by llpoolej
Scott, Larry would like to know how you did your baffles that seperate the sump up. How did you attach them so they do not move.

He saw the photo and said "that is what I am trying to do".

Asked if it was just aquarium adhesive you used.

Sorry to derail the thread! That sump is my old 30G glass tank. I had the local glass place cut the baffles for me and leave about 1/16" gap on both sides. I had the tops rounded over for protection. I also had the bottom corners rounded off so they would fit better along the old silicone. I used 100% silicone with no additives to secure the glass. I placed the silicone on the edge of the glass and worked it into place -- then placed a bead around the edges on both sides and smoothed it with my finger. I made an extension from some airline tubing to get the bead down between the baffles (and smoothed it out with a wooden dowel).

It makes a mess and about knocks you out with the odor, but it works well. It took a lot of scraping time to clean up all the silicone smears that I left behind. I let it cure until all odor was gone before I placed any water in it. That took about a week.

[easttn]

I lost my Blue tort and maybe the blue chalice, I"m over this problem. It took over a week before any signs of stress began on these guys. CRAP!

[fishdoc11]

I'm sorry to hear about the misshap Charles. Let me know if you lose anything I have frags of from our trade and I'll see you get starter replacements.
Chris

[llpoolej]

It just sounds like it keeps getting worse Charles, it just really sucks.

[cee]

Charles:

Sorry to hear about the ongoing troubles. Did the tort RTN on you? Is your chalice an Echinophyilla or Oxypora? In either case, I'm surprised it went so quickly, but then again I guess it's been a week. As a male member of **** sapiens, I feel obligated to offer a solution or fix, but unfortunately I really don't have much to add to what you've done already except to offer encouragement to ride it out. The glory days will return in due time!

Dave

[cee]

Can you believe RC bleeped H O M O? I wasn't using it in a derogatory manner, either! Must be some computer filter they have on their server.

Dave