A Reef Tank in the Desert - +/- 1,400 gallon system
- Thread starter danfeig
- Start date
danfeig
.Registered Member
Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
We all have a great deal to give thanks for! I hope that everyone has a nice holiday (day off work) and that you are able to spend some quality time with your family in front of your tanks.
I am looking forward to spending a few days on the beach in Mexico with my wife and kids.
I am bringing my laptop with me so that I can see if there is anything that I can't live without on Black Friday.
Regards,
Dan
Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
We all have a great deal to give thanks for! I hope that everyone has a nice holiday (day off work) and that you are able to spend some quality time with your family in front of your tanks.
I am looking forward to spending a few days on the beach in Mexico with my wife and kids.
I am bringing my laptop with me so that I can see if there is anything that I can't live without on Black Friday.
Regards,
Dan
Newbie Aquarist
Reefing is my middle name
dca22anderson
New member
Dan thanks for sharing your maintenance process with us. Looking great as always!
danfeig
.Registered Member
I'm such an Idiot! Flood issue...
I'm such an Idiot! Flood issue...
So Murphy's Law came into play before I left on my holiday vacation.
I decided not to go to work on Wednesday so that I could do my weekly maintenance a few days early and get ready for my trip down here to Mexico. I changed out the filter socks and filled the auto-feeders. Than I decided to perform a 100 gallon water change. Everything went great, no issues.
When I was done, I decided to refill my 200 gallon storage tank in the fishroom and add another 100 gallons of freshly made SW that I had sitting in a storage tank outside. Did that, no problem.
I had some time to kill so I decided to do a light cleaning of my refugium and ended up draining out approximately 10 gallons of water and small pieces of chaeto and accumulated debris. My water level was slightly lower and so before my ato would turn on, I decided to slightly turn the ball valve on my storage tank to replace the 10 gallons of SW. Then it happened...
My cell phone rang, one of my daughters came home, the housekeeper had a question for me and I don't know what else - but I got distracted. I then left the house to run an pick up the Turkey Dinner's and cold cuts for our trip.
About an hour later, I was just getting back into my car and had several missed calls from my house. My daughter had called panicking that the water was coming out of the fish room door and that my sump was overflowing. She also smelled burning. I quickly looked at my phone and had several text messages and emails from my apex unit that my pumps were shut off as my floor water sensors had been activated.
I immediately called home to assess the situation. I had my daughter "flip" 3 circuit breakers so that she could walk into the room comfortably. Fortunately it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it was pretty bad. Our house keeper was still there so she was able to mop up most of the water before I got home and was able to get behind the tanks with my shop-vac.
So here is what the damage was, what went right and what went wrong...
The obvious screw up was leaving the water from my storage tank running. My bad!!! I just plane forgot about it! It topped off my tanks and spilled approximately 60 gallons of water. The less obvious screw up dealt with the ballast's for my MP40's and MP60's. I had them mounted on a 5/8" piece of plywood that was under my sump. I thought there was no way that water would ever go that high and because of the slope of my floor, I was 'safe.' Quite to the contrary...water came over my sump from all four sides and just rolled off the acrylic and became trapped in my steel stand braces. 4 Ballasts need to be replaced and I am hopeful they were Federal Expressed out to me yesterday!!!! The third major thing that went wrong was that I did not consider "gravity flow." More on that in a minute. The 4th was that I did not have my cell phone on me when I went into the restaurant. If I would have had it in my pocket, I would have received the alarm notifications and would have been able to immediately call home and have my daughter shut off the water storage tank.
What went right? My Apex system. It shut off my pumps and sent out text messages and emails notifying me.
Back to the "third major thing that went wrong..." When I added my storage tank pump to my Apex unit, I did not take into account 'gravity flow'. When I want to add fresh SW from my storage tank, I just turn a ball valve on a PVC pipe at the bottom of the tank. Well, it didn't occur to me that if the Ball Valve is open and even if the pump is shut off, water will still flow through into the system. BIG MISTAKE! So, I am going to need to replace the ball valve with a solenoid valve. The big plus with this, is that I will be able to set some timer modes for when I turn it on, like: "On for 5 minutes" or "On for 10 minutes" to prevent the possibility of flooding my Fish Room again.
All in all, I feel pretty lucky and am looking at the situation as a learning experience. I know the deficiencies that I have to correct and will have them all resolved shortly so it doesn't happen again when no one is home.
The other big fortunate thing... my wife wasn't home through all of this!!!!!
I'm such an Idiot! Flood issue...
So Murphy's Law came into play before I left on my holiday vacation.
I decided not to go to work on Wednesday so that I could do my weekly maintenance a few days early and get ready for my trip down here to Mexico. I changed out the filter socks and filled the auto-feeders. Than I decided to perform a 100 gallon water change. Everything went great, no issues.
When I was done, I decided to refill my 200 gallon storage tank in the fishroom and add another 100 gallons of freshly made SW that I had sitting in a storage tank outside. Did that, no problem.
I had some time to kill so I decided to do a light cleaning of my refugium and ended up draining out approximately 10 gallons of water and small pieces of chaeto and accumulated debris. My water level was slightly lower and so before my ato would turn on, I decided to slightly turn the ball valve on my storage tank to replace the 10 gallons of SW. Then it happened...
My cell phone rang, one of my daughters came home, the housekeeper had a question for me and I don't know what else - but I got distracted. I then left the house to run an pick up the Turkey Dinner's and cold cuts for our trip.
About an hour later, I was just getting back into my car and had several missed calls from my house. My daughter had called panicking that the water was coming out of the fish room door and that my sump was overflowing. She also smelled burning. I quickly looked at my phone and had several text messages and emails from my apex unit that my pumps were shut off as my floor water sensors had been activated.
I immediately called home to assess the situation. I had my daughter "flip" 3 circuit breakers so that she could walk into the room comfortably. Fortunately it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it was pretty bad. Our house keeper was still there so she was able to mop up most of the water before I got home and was able to get behind the tanks with my shop-vac.
So here is what the damage was, what went right and what went wrong...
The obvious screw up was leaving the water from my storage tank running. My bad!!! I just plane forgot about it! It topped off my tanks and spilled approximately 60 gallons of water. The less obvious screw up dealt with the ballast's for my MP40's and MP60's. I had them mounted on a 5/8" piece of plywood that was under my sump. I thought there was no way that water would ever go that high and because of the slope of my floor, I was 'safe.' Quite to the contrary...water came over my sump from all four sides and just rolled off the acrylic and became trapped in my steel stand braces. 4 Ballasts need to be replaced and I am hopeful they were Federal Expressed out to me yesterday!!!! The third major thing that went wrong was that I did not consider "gravity flow." More on that in a minute. The 4th was that I did not have my cell phone on me when I went into the restaurant. If I would have had it in my pocket, I would have received the alarm notifications and would have been able to immediately call home and have my daughter shut off the water storage tank.
What went right? My Apex system. It shut off my pumps and sent out text messages and emails notifying me.
Back to the "third major thing that went wrong..." When I added my storage tank pump to my Apex unit, I did not take into account 'gravity flow'. When I want to add fresh SW from my storage tank, I just turn a ball valve on a PVC pipe at the bottom of the tank. Well, it didn't occur to me that if the Ball Valve is open and even if the pump is shut off, water will still flow through into the system. BIG MISTAKE! So, I am going to need to replace the ball valve with a solenoid valve. The big plus with this, is that I will be able to set some timer modes for when I turn it on, like: "On for 5 minutes" or "On for 10 minutes" to prevent the possibility of flooding my Fish Room again.
All in all, I feel pretty lucky and am looking at the situation as a learning experience. I know the deficiencies that I have to correct and will have them all resolved shortly so it doesn't happen again when no one is home.
The other big fortunate thing... my wife wasn't home through all of this!!!!!
dave.m
Active member
Perhaps it would be better to put the solenoid after the ball valve so you could still manually turn off the water to replace the solenoid from time to time as required.danfeig said:
As for your spill I wouldn't get too upset over it. It happens to all of us sooner or later. Aquariums are disasters waiting to happen. What is significant is how well you are able to contain the flood. A low wall, 1-2", to contain the water in the fishroom and a floor drain are a big help.
Dave.M
Your flooding
Your flooding
I am in complete agreement with wife not being home !!!! Years back when I purchased a new 250 gallon acrylic tank that was custom built for the living room, the bottom split open when they were filling it and the tank was about 249 gallon full. !!!! What a disaster, I am glad it all worked out tip the house keeper to stay quiet !!!
Your flooding
I am in complete agreement with wife not being home !!!! Years back when I purchased a new 250 gallon acrylic tank that was custom built for the living room, the bottom split open when they were filling it and the tank was about 249 gallon full. !!!! What a disaster, I am glad it all worked out tip the house keeper to stay quiet !!!
david00061
New member
That one wasn't to bad. Only 100 gallons on the floor. I did pretty much the same a few weeks ago. I left my valve open from my mixing tank. There was a 165 gallons of fresh water in tank. So I was on the road and turned on mixing tank pump with apex to stir water up. I over flowed the sump in no time. Water on floor sensor shut all the pumps off, except the pump in mixing tank.
Mixing tank pump is now programed to shut off too.
If it wasn't for my apex shutting off my returns I may have fresh watered out my tank.
Mixing tank pump is now programed to shut off too.
If it wasn't for my apex shutting off my returns I may have fresh watered out my tank.
david00061
New member
No house keeper just a super wife 
o2manyfish
o2manyfish
I don't know about the logic of having the pumps shut off when the floor gets wet. Seems to me the floor gets wet for two reasons... a) your top off system (of whatever means) is overflowing your system b) your main pump fails and the sump can't handle the water from the system draining back.
But what ever these circumstances, by shutting the pump off to an already flooding system, you are just dumping more water onto the floor when the display tank drains back to the sump.
Let's face it out return pumps are pretty much one of the more inexpensive items to replace, and if your flood is from a split sump or display tank, shutting on the return pump isn't going to save you anything.
Unless your flood is cause by your display tank over flowing, which means your overflow stopped draining the tank, how is shutting of the return pump going to help. In the old days when we had little corner overflows, with a couple dozen teeth and a single 1.5" return line I could see this as a potential issue. But now we all have larger over flows with redundant drains.
I added a float sensor to my overflow, so if the over flow fills then I get an alert.
I think being alerted of the flood is a great feature of controllers and flood sensors, but shutting off the pumps is not one of the things I would have the controller do immediately, as in most circumstances I think you are going to be adding to the quantity of water flooding.
Just a thought
Dave B
But what ever these circumstances, by shutting the pump off to an already flooding system, you are just dumping more water onto the floor when the display tank drains back to the sump.
Let's face it out return pumps are pretty much one of the more inexpensive items to replace, and if your flood is from a split sump or display tank, shutting on the return pump isn't going to save you anything.
Unless your flood is cause by your display tank over flowing, which means your overflow stopped draining the tank, how is shutting of the return pump going to help. In the old days when we had little corner overflows, with a couple dozen teeth and a single 1.5" return line I could see this as a potential issue. But now we all have larger over flows with redundant drains.
I added a float sensor to my overflow, so if the over flow fills then I get an alert.
I think being alerted of the flood is a great feature of controllers and flood sensors, but shutting off the pumps is not one of the things I would have the controller do immediately, as in most circumstances I think you are going to be adding to the quantity of water flooding.
Just a thought
Dave B
david00061
New member
did you read my post? water got on the floor I stopped 165 gallons of fresh water going in to the DISPLAY. if I break a return line pipe whatever my returns will shut off.yes if they do not shut off the sUMPs will empty and returnS will run dry until I get home and shut them off but I will not need to shut them off because they will be dead from running dry .
o2manyfish
o2manyfish
David00061, for your circumstances it definitely was of value. But for most of the accidents that happen when unattended, I think shutting off isn't as wise. It's only my opinion, and I have been wrong before. Just posting an opposing thought.
danfeig
.Registered Member
Thanks Dave. I will install the solenoid after the 1st ball valve.
I was a little hard on myself about the flood. This is the third time that I have left the water running. Just the first time I let it flood. Unfortunately, I don't have a drain. Hopefully with the solenoid and the programming I am going to use when it is "opened", it won't happen again!
danfeig
.Registered Member
Thanks pgaudreau!
You know what my wife said to me when she got home and saw the fish room floor? "Well, the floor looks really clean now!!!"
dankreef
New member
Wow. New here on RC just went through your thread, skimming some of course Spectacular set up, but at the same time I have started your thread I have ended it by locating a wall in my home that I could also convert. As I had no intentions of doing this before your thread will soon stimulate my local economy... Lol at your elections post.
Spectacular set up, but at the same time I have started your thread I have ended it by locating a wall in my home that I could also convert. As I had no intentions of doing this before your thread will soon stimulate my local economy... Lol at your elections post.
Made2Rock
Member
Dan,
Whenever I build something I try to put redundancy in. In the case of my float switches I have two and wish I had used three. The two are at different levels so my water level needs to drop down far enough to need water but the the water must also be lower then the top float switch. This way if the bottom float fails the top float will stop the ATO once the water hits the high level.
Its not much but just thought I would pass it on.
Joe
Whenever I build something I try to put redundancy in. In the case of my float switches I have two and wish I had used three. The two are at different levels so my water level needs to drop down far enough to need water but the the water must also be lower then the top float switch. This way if the bottom float fails the top float will stop the ATO once the water hits the high level.
Its not much but just thought I would pass it on.
Joe
danfeig
.Registered Member
You ended up getting very lucky David. And I am not just talking about with your wife! I am looking for a 110 volt solenoid valve for 3/4" pipe as I type this. I have been told to avoid the irrigation solenoids.
