vyperone
Member
In an effort to help others by my own mistakes I thought I would share with you my experience... Hopefully others can learn and not have what happened to me happen to them.
On Thursday I get a call from my wife telling me my son just called her and told her that my fish tank ( 220 gallons ) was completely empty and that the entire house was flooded. My first reaction was, "is everything dead?" I left work in a panic and as I am going home my son calls me and tells me the situation. My tank has about 6 inches of water left in it. He wants to know what to do...
I live about 30 minutes from home so I started going down the list in my head... Is there power? "No he says" there is no power to the tank. What happened?, I ask. Looks like the power went off in the house at 8:30 this morning. Whatever happened caused all the water to drain, short out the GFI AND battery back up.
To no avail I tried to get my son to get power started again. In frustration I told him I would be home soon and just let it be, get some towels and start cleaning up.
Now I cannot fully describe what I felt when I walked in the house and saw my tank. Suffice it to say I was horrified. All of my hard corals were out of the water. The Xenia farm I had going was just a bunch of smelly slime. My Nasso Tang was on his side flailing in the shallow water. My zoo's were all closed up and looking dry... My three BTA where hanign from their rocks like limp pieces of pasta...
I had to move fast... I opened the cabinet to see that the 55 gallon sump was flooded to the top. I finally moved enough pwer cords around until I got power back to the pump and got the sump down to normal levels. I moved my nasso to the sump/fuge. He was shaken but he was happy to finally have some water to swim in.
Once I got the power going I instructed my son to get the 65 gallon barrel and go to my LFS and get some water. Unfortunately the LFS only had about 50 and I was going to need more. Got ahold of another LFS and they had enough to fill my 65 gallon barrel. Still not enough, left me about 4 inches from the top of the tank and no circulation going on. Installed a bubbler in the tank and one in the fuge with the nasso. Moved as much as I could into the water and the rocks that were left in the fuge with the tang. Went to my LFS of last resort and they mixed up about 65 gallons for me.
Took just about every towel in the house and started mopping up the mess. My wife came home and all she could do was cry.
I went to bed Thursday night just knowing that everything would be dead when I woke up. I was ready to call my LFS and tell him to just come get it. I was heartbroken, devasted, the entire house with Pergo floors and brand new carpet was destroyed.
Now for the good news. I woke up the next morning and except for the fact my Xenia were not looking as healthy as usual... they were pumping. Even my brain coral that had to be out of the water for almost 6 hours was bright and green. The only thing I really lost was my flame angel, which actually I think he died a few days before because I remember not seeing him at feeding time the day before.
I called State Farm, they said it was covered but that nothing in the tank was covered. I told him I didnt care about that. We had at least 14 thousand in wood floors. The tank could be rebuilt but my wife was not going to walk around on concrete for very long. State Farm sent out a cleanup crew. We had people out here with blowers and dehumidifiers. They removed all the pergo flooring and carpet. Except that I will be without actual flooring for a couple of weeks everything is back to normal and the rearranged tank actually looks better than before.
Now for the lesson; don't use check valves. Although I tested mine frequently, Murphy's Law says that when it the valve is really needed two things will happen. The first is the darn valve will fail, the second is that it will fail when you are not home.
I re-plumbed the tank properly to remove the dependency on a check valve. Upon inspection I found that a snail had climbed down in to the valve and effectively locked it open. By my estimate it took about 30 minutes to drain the tank into my house.
DONT DEPEND ON CHECK VALVES
Lastly I want to say thanks to Amazing Aquariums. When I needed water he gave it to me. Yes, gave it to me, no charge. The other two LFS were happy to charge me. Let me say I don't expect to get it for free but it was a super nice gesture by my LFS.
Hopefully this will save someone else the heartache and anguish I suffered.
On Thursday I get a call from my wife telling me my son just called her and told her that my fish tank ( 220 gallons ) was completely empty and that the entire house was flooded. My first reaction was, "is everything dead?" I left work in a panic and as I am going home my son calls me and tells me the situation. My tank has about 6 inches of water left in it. He wants to know what to do...
I live about 30 minutes from home so I started going down the list in my head... Is there power? "No he says" there is no power to the tank. What happened?, I ask. Looks like the power went off in the house at 8:30 this morning. Whatever happened caused all the water to drain, short out the GFI AND battery back up.
To no avail I tried to get my son to get power started again. In frustration I told him I would be home soon and just let it be, get some towels and start cleaning up.
Now I cannot fully describe what I felt when I walked in the house and saw my tank. Suffice it to say I was horrified. All of my hard corals were out of the water. The Xenia farm I had going was just a bunch of smelly slime. My Nasso Tang was on his side flailing in the shallow water. My zoo's were all closed up and looking dry... My three BTA where hanign from their rocks like limp pieces of pasta...
I had to move fast... I opened the cabinet to see that the 55 gallon sump was flooded to the top. I finally moved enough pwer cords around until I got power back to the pump and got the sump down to normal levels. I moved my nasso to the sump/fuge. He was shaken but he was happy to finally have some water to swim in.
Once I got the power going I instructed my son to get the 65 gallon barrel and go to my LFS and get some water. Unfortunately the LFS only had about 50 and I was going to need more. Got ahold of another LFS and they had enough to fill my 65 gallon barrel. Still not enough, left me about 4 inches from the top of the tank and no circulation going on. Installed a bubbler in the tank and one in the fuge with the nasso. Moved as much as I could into the water and the rocks that were left in the fuge with the tang. Went to my LFS of last resort and they mixed up about 65 gallons for me.
Took just about every towel in the house and started mopping up the mess. My wife came home and all she could do was cry.
I went to bed Thursday night just knowing that everything would be dead when I woke up. I was ready to call my LFS and tell him to just come get it. I was heartbroken, devasted, the entire house with Pergo floors and brand new carpet was destroyed.
Now for the good news. I woke up the next morning and except for the fact my Xenia were not looking as healthy as usual... they were pumping. Even my brain coral that had to be out of the water for almost 6 hours was bright and green. The only thing I really lost was my flame angel, which actually I think he died a few days before because I remember not seeing him at feeding time the day before.
I called State Farm, they said it was covered but that nothing in the tank was covered. I told him I didnt care about that. We had at least 14 thousand in wood floors. The tank could be rebuilt but my wife was not going to walk around on concrete for very long. State Farm sent out a cleanup crew. We had people out here with blowers and dehumidifiers. They removed all the pergo flooring and carpet. Except that I will be without actual flooring for a couple of weeks everything is back to normal and the rearranged tank actually looks better than before.
Now for the lesson; don't use check valves. Although I tested mine frequently, Murphy's Law says that when it the valve is really needed two things will happen. The first is the darn valve will fail, the second is that it will fail when you are not home.
I re-plumbed the tank properly to remove the dependency on a check valve. Upon inspection I found that a snail had climbed down in to the valve and effectively locked it open. By my estimate it took about 30 minutes to drain the tank into my house.
DONT DEPEND ON CHECK VALVES
Lastly I want to say thanks to Amazing Aquariums. When I needed water he gave it to me. Yes, gave it to me, no charge. The other two LFS were happy to charge me. Let me say I don't expect to get it for free but it was a super nice gesture by my LFS.
Hopefully this will save someone else the heartache and anguish I suffered.
Hey, it could have been worse, the floors could have caved in. 
