Flood! Help!

[uberlink]

My tank lost about ten gallons of water while I was at work today due to some kind of malfunction in my protein skimmer. The water apparently found its way down the inside of a wall and onto the new carpet in my recently refinished basement.
What do I need to do? Get someone out here to professionally dry it out? Will the saltwater be likely to create mold or mildew problems inside the wall it ran down?

 

[sepulatian]

Originally Posted by uberlink
My tank lost about ten gallons of water while I was at work today due to some kind of malfunction in my protein skimmer. The water apparently found its way down the inside of a wall and onto the new carpet in my recently refinished basement.
What do I need to do? Get someone out here to professionally dry it out? Will the saltwater be likely to create mold or mildew problems inside the wall it ran down?
If the water went down the inside of a wall............how in the world did that happen? Then you would need to have it professionally dried and vacumed.

 

[lsu]

My skimmer overflowed as well, the water went underneath my stand and onto my carpet. I thought I was screwed but when I moved a few months later my carpet was just fine. I don't know if I got lucky but there was no mildew at all. best of luck

 

[earlybird]

What kind of skimmer?
My guess SS?

 

[symon]

i would think you could go rent a carpet cleaner and use it to suck that water up and clean out the salt residue? As far as the wall , you may have to redo the texture and paint!

 

[scotts]

Originally Posted by Symon
i would think you could go rent a carpet cleaner and use it to suck that water up and clean out the salt residue? As far as the wall , you may have to redo the texture and paint!

EXACTLY what I was going to say.
After you dry the carpet you may want to make a few passes with the spray of the cleaner on to get rid of any salt, but you will be OK.

 

[uberlink]

I am not certain that the water went down the wall, but I think so. The tank sits on a hardwood floor and against a structural (i.e. outside) wall on the second floor. The tank lost ten gallons of water, but almost none of it was on the floor upstairs. Instead, the carpet in the basement that is next to that same exterior wall is damp with saltwater. So I think that the water pooled up on the wood floor against the wall and then somehow drained down.
I'm having a water cleanup specialist come over. If it were just sitting on top of the carpet, I'd clean it. But I think it's more in the pad, so I'm going to have them just pull up the edge and set up a blower to make sure it dries, and then clean the carpet. We just barely had the basement redone and spent a fortune on the carpet...my wife will murder me if it doesn't get put right.
Thanks for the thoughts!

 

[uberlink]

Originally Posted by earlybird
What kind of skimmer?
My guess SS?

I actually don't know for sure because it came with a complete setup I bought on craigslist. I thought it was a Red Sea, but now I just looked at some photos on line and I think it's a Coralife SS skimmer.

 

[jrthomas40]

yeah coralife SS are hard to tweak i had mine overflow about 2 weeks ago so i got a carpet cleaner from my mom...transferred everything in my dt to my 75g i had moved the tank sucked up as much water as i could with the cleaner then used carpet cleaner to clean up the salt and honestly it was a bit moldy smelling so watch out for that because it was nasty skimmer water...but a carpet cleaner will work fine...afterwaters but one of those blower heaters and a fan so that it blows across the wet area to help dry it a little better

 

[uberlink]

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to replace some carpet pad. The guy is here now. Thank god it's not going to be too expensive--a few hundred bucks. It drained down into the basement, and the carpet pad they used in my basement has a sealant on top. It's supposed to keep water from getting down through the carpet and into the pad...but if the water seeps in from underneath then it can't ever evaporate. So I get to replace it.
I guess it could have been worse.

 

[sambasam]

is it spread out across your whole floor. make sure you dry it you dont want any mold do you?

 

[uberlink]

I don't think mold will be a problem. They're sucking all the water out of the carpet and then replacing all the pad. They're going to apply an antimicrobial chemical under and on top of the new pad, and then use a antimicrobial shampoo on the carpet. I think it will be okay. But what a pain in the neck. Not how I planned to spend Saturday!

 

[uberlink]

Problem solved. And I invested in a much better protein skimmer that should keep things from flooding out again.