Hopefully I will still have a tank when I get home

[jmesmcm]

Came down this morning to my tank making that awful sound of a tank whose sump has run dry. Thought to myself this is strange I know that I topped up the water last night adding about 3 gallons of freshwater to my sump. Initially didn't notice anything strange so immediately add 5 gallons of FW to my sump and wait for the pump to reprime (the sump is in my basement while the tank is about 14ft above it). Leave for a few minutes and return, add about 3-4 more gallons of FW to bring tank up to it's proper level thinking the dehumidifer must have increased the evaporation.
Then I notice that there the inlet hose for my calc reactor had come out of my sump causing the reactor to become airbound and it seems as though the outlet returning the effluent to the sump acted as a siphon and siphoned off all of this water as opposed to evaporation.
Hope my salinity isn't way off the charts low and my reef is alright from the sudden change. The tank is a 120gal tank and the sump usually holds about an additional 10 gallons of water.
Teach me to act quickly when checking the tank before leaving for the train.

 

[cgrant]

take pto day my friend!

 

[jmesmcm]

Crossed my mind but couldn't today, to much going on. Will have to check everything when I get home, although my cleaner shrimp are usually very good abrometers if something has gone wrong.
Might have to delay changing over to the new sump though. Had been planning on changing to a larger sump this evening (adding about an addtional 30 gallons) to the system capacity but now will have to see how things are looking.
Current inhabititants are:
Cherry Head Wrasse
Leopard Wrasse
Bahghai Cardinal
Royal Gramma
2 chalk basslets
scooter blenny
bullseye mandarin goby
swahili wrasse
orange stripe butterfly
coral beauty angel
pink bar goby
sailfin tang
2 part stripe true percula clowns
clam
2 cleaner shrimp
1 coral banded shrimp
3 peppermint shrimp
corals are SPS

 

[puffer32]

I would have checked the salinty at least, only takes afew seconds. Hopefully all will be fine when you do test your tests tonight.
I have to ask you. You have 2 chalk basslets and a royal gramma. Do they all get along? I want to ad a royal gramma ot a black cap, but have always heard you can't mix basslets, pysdo's or gramma's :notsure:

 

[teen]

so you added 9 gallons of freshwater just this morning? your salinity will most likely be off and for future reference, its never a good idea to add that much freshwater at one time, even if your sump is low.

 

[rad]

so what was the verdict? all is well I hope.

 

[jmesmcm]

All seems to be fine my salinity dropped a bit but fortunately only one coral seems to be complaining. All fish and inverts seem none the worse for wear.
I realize that it isn't good to add that much fresh water at once, it was an impulsive mistake as I only had about 2 minutes before having to catch my train and I didn't want to risk it pumping dry during the day.
Typically I only add 2-3 gallons a day to replace the evaporation, but in this case it had siphoned out.

 

[rad]

glad to hear it. :jumping:

 

[jmesmcm]

Puffer, I wouldn't mix a royal gramma with a pseudo but my chalk basslets and the royal gramma seem to do fine. Neither one ever seemed to care about the other.