Oh, No, Flood

[Paul B]

If you are in this long enough, and if you live long enough, you will have "a" flood, more likely, many floods but if you are lucky, you won't have to build an ark.
This week we are watching our Granddaughter Greta and we took her to breakfast then to the pool. On the way out I noticed my skimmer along with the new bio ball chamber was empty. That happens if the five gallon bucket under it fills. There is an auto shut off that prevents floods. It has almost always worked unless I forget to position the bucket under the drain from the skimmer. But when you are watching a one year old, strange things happen.
I am not sure why the bucket filled but it did. I think it was because I just added this bio ball chamber as a test and yesterday I dumped it out to adjust something and I know those bio balls do not like to stop tumbling.
Anyway, I started up the skimmer and we ran out to take Greta to breakfast and the pool. When I came home and checked the skimmer. OMG, Noah's flood. The skimmer was overflowing like crazy and the effluent was pouring on the floor. :shhh: The tank is in a closet in the finished basement with furnature, rugs and all. About an inch of water came out of the tank, but it keeps filling, great. So I shut the skimmer, get the shop vac and start pulling stuff out of the closet. Being a fish Geek, I know floods are inevidable so most of the stuff on the floor in that closet is water proofed. But we have our high school albums, old projectors and wedding movies in a plastic bag as well as about 100 old record albums. Records are round things that spin and music sticks to it. I wanted an excuse to dump them anyway, but unfortunately they didn't get wet enough to dump. As I was cleaning the floor I also noticed a fish laying there. He must have known that I would be upset at the flood and commited suicide. He is a small fish and I don't know what it is yet. I have a lot of small fish that I have no idea what they are anyway so I am not all broken up about him.:bablefish
My salinity is now probably so weak I can keep kissing gourami's in there along with the corals but I am not sure if kissing gourami's are reef safe.:idea:

 

[tomjof]

That sucks man. Hope everything is fine

 

[Paul B]

Thanks, it's dried up now. My wife has an alarm system in her feet for that, when she steps on a wet floor, it is conected to her vocal cords and she screams letting me know sonething is wrong. But a carpet is a great absorber of salt water.

 

[thirty6]

you crack me up everytime! good luck with the mess

 

[Paul B]

I am now building a fail safe for the fail safe that I already have. And after that, I make a fail safe to remind me to check the first two fail safes. :idea:

 

[jbjints]

Please do not mention the F word. I am not sure what my wife would do to me if God forbid my tank was to flood the place. I hope I never find out. Good luck with the clean up and the multiple fail safes.

 

[Paul B]

Now that I designed this stupid bio pellet reactor and connected it to the skimmer and surface skimmer I am ripe for another flood. All of this with the associated plumbing is just temporarilly put together and I didn't glue any of the connections so I can take it apart if I decide to change something. I think of these things in the middle of the night so I rarely sleep. If one of those connections come apart, I will again have to call Noah. But if that doesn't happen in the next few hours, today I will install the last fail safe which is a barrier of ancle iron siliconed to the floor around the tank which is in a closet. If there is a leak anywhere, it "should" be contained with in the barrier. I used to install these under large computers when they were water cooled. (Yes older, large powerful computers used to be water cooled)
Whenever I am convinced this complicated system in my tank is what I want' I will glue it together. But I still have built in a way to easily take it apart and just leave the pritein skimmer in case the bio pellet reactor croaks or I have to remove it in a hurry. I still don't trust the thing and it is just an experiment.

 

[tomtoothdoc]

isn't that a brass valve? i thought that's a no-no, unless you're hacking another experiment you're not telling us about... like time-released copper treatment?!?!!?

anyway, sorry to hear about the flood and the dead unknown fish. the fail-safe of the fail-safe of the fail-safe still do fail..:frown: actually let me correct that, the fail-safe system itself didn't fail, it's the human stupidity that failed.....i was the defective link in the system.

 

[Paul B]

A brass valve? Maybe thats why my fish never get ich. I never thought about that. And maybe I should replace the pellets in that reactor with copper pennies. Why didn't I think of that :scratchch

(it's plastic)

 

[tomtoothdoc]

A brass valve? Maybe thats why my fish never get ich. I never thought about that. And maybe I should replace the pellets in that reactor with copper pennies. Why didn't I think of that :scratchch

(it's plastic)

plastic brass valve.....what will they think of next?

you're gonna have to sort through the pennies for ones dated pre 1982 to get the copper, post '82 it's mostly zinc.

i wonder if i can qt/treat the fish with a bunch of pre '82 pennies?:idea:

 

[lnevo]

Sounds like a great idea...a reactor to dose copper would be an awesome way to medicate. In a hospital tank of course.

 

[Paul B]

1982 to get the copper, post '82 it's mostly zinc.

Zinc kills paracites almost as good as copper and has the added advantage that the paracites won't rust.