Help! 90 gallon leaked, and flooded the house

[redvipe2010]

Major Flood! Help! Came home tonight, my 90 gallon tank had 6" of water in it. My fish were so stressed, my corals were out of water. I'm lucky to have had 2 empty takes at the time and ready to go, so I put all my dried out corals in one, and my live rock in the other. My other tank was not empty, but only had sand, corals and live rock, so I put my very stressed out fish in there, and it was the largest one available.

So my questions is, (besides all the damage done to my house) the anthilia that I got from Todd at the meeting in January, is not looking good, should I remove it, will it cause harm? The mushrooms that I got from Todd are still looking good, they remained in the water the entire time. The Green Star Polyps are looking horrible, will they cause harm? The Frogspron I got from David at the February meeting has this white film all over it. My Xainia seems to be doing the best, it also was on the bottom of the tank, and stayed under water. My leather corals seem to be possibly coming back, my BTA's seem to be maybe coming back. I have my 100 lbs of live sand in a rubber maid tub with a power head and about 7" of water on top.

Any suggestions will help. I've been off work due to a work related spinal injury and my flood had to happen 2 days after I returned to work. Wish this could of happened when I was home, at least I'd have gotten help earlier.

I'm still new at the hobby, so not sure what to do.

As far as the damage to the house, there is 3 rooms of carpeting flooded, and since the water went to the heating ventilation, the basement ceiling tile is now waiting out at the curb for the garbage man, along with "some" of the carpet, and "all" of the furniture that was under the heat duct.

I'll be checking the website till noon tomorrow, then I'll be getting steroid injections in my spine so may be off the internet a few days but if anyone can offer any ideas that I didn't already cover, please respond or call the cell phone 815-671-5854.

Thanks a bunch!

Brenda

 

[llewoh05]

Sorry to hear about your bad news. I am also new to the hobby and i know what 100gal of saltwater can do to your house. I had a fire last year and my tank blew up. It put the fire out but everything got roasted first, before the tank wall shattered. flooded 3 rooms.

I don't know about what can do harm and what can't. Just watch everything very closely and at the first sign of something dead, I would yank it out. You don't want your ammonia to spike more than it all ready will.

 

[redvipe2010]

llewoh05, wow a fire would be horrible. Glad I'm only dealing with water and not fire and water.

Well as of this morning, instead of having two BTA's I have 3, and not sure if the other one is splitting or not, it's alive but looking strange. So it may be splitting too. Not sure what the corals are doing yet, I'm going to keep the lights off at least until noon when I get home. The fish are still alive, just hope they don't get sick.

 

[DKKA]

Sorry about the flood. As far as removing things, if it looks like tissue is rotting or coming off then it's probably done for. Otherwise, leave it and watch. My guess is that the frogspawn is probably done for, but the star polyps may be okay.

Dan

 

[schmoeger6]

I live in Dwight, and am in Morris all the time, if you need a hand with anything let me know, always glad to help out a fellow reefer.

 

[redvipe2010]

As of tonight, almost 29 hours after I found my mess, the leathers are doing great. The BTA that was split this morning looks great considering it looked like a dried up worm when I found it. The other BTA is in the process of splitting but taking it's sweet time doing so. The GSP is approximately 40 - 50% opened up. The Anthelia is better but still has a long ways to go. The frogsprown is better, but a long ways from being back to normal. It is no longer covered in the white slimmy stuff, It's opening up but not very much. Everything else is doing great. The fish have adapted well to their new temporary home, and eating great. I still have not found the peppermint shrimp since I've moved him to the new tank, but thats sort of normal for him.

What an exhausting two days!

 

[tcottle]

Sorry to hear about your loss. I would give the corals a chance to recover before you pull them out. I think that you will be surprised what makes it. If something doesn't make it I'll gladly provide you with more frags

Todd

 

[redvipe2010]

Thanks Todd, I'm pretty confident at this point that everthing has a good fighting chance. I'm seeing great progress considering what they've been through, but some of them still have a long ways to go to being back to where they were. I'm not pulling anything out yet.

 

[Horace]

I didnt lose even one coral during my little incident and that was much more stressful than what yours went through I am sure. Corals will live just fine out of water for several hours. LPS are probably harmed the worst from air exposure though because they will droop and possibly do damage to the soft tissue.

I am quite confident everything else will be ok..

Just curious but did you find the source of the leak? Was it the tank itself?

 

[redvipe2010]

I have not found a leak in the tank, I don't think I will either. I believe it's a plumbing issue. We had a power outage while we were at work, and power was restored before we got home. My guess is that there was a reverse flow of water during the outage. Which seems a bit strange to me since I've turned off the power before with no problem, but I will definately be making some changes and testing and retesting before anything goes back in. Before this happened I was looking into some type of back up power supply, we typically only have power loss during the summer when temperatures reach upper 90's and the demand is high. Any advice on what to use for back up power?

Do you think I have to cure my live rock again? A lot of it was out of water for I'm guessing maybe 6 - 7 hours. I have most of mine in another tank by itself and will be testing the water chemistry again tonight. The other rock has coral attached to it, and is in a 25 gallon tank. So far all the levels are normal.

 

[Horace]

I dont think you will have to re-cure your rock. You may have a bit of dieoff but I wouldnt imagine it will be extreme. Do you have a check valve on your return lines from your sump??? If not i would HIGHLY advise you get one. You could also put in a siphon break, which is nothing more than a small hole in the return line just below the surface of the water. Once the water drops below that hole it will suck air and stop the siphon.

 

[Benny Z]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7024361#post7024361 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Horace
Do you have a check valve on your return lines from your sump??? If not i would HIGHLY advise you get one. You could also put in a siphon break, which is nothing more than a small hole in the return line just below the surface of the water. Once the water drops below that hole it will suck air and stop the siphon.

good advice x 2

 

[redvipe2010]

Siphon break was there already, and worked great in the past. I've been looking into the check valve the last few days. But won't be able to do anything soon, just had injections in my spine, and I'm pretty stiff.

 

[Mdoug25]

You stated that your tank only had 6" of water in it when your returned home. Does your return plumbing go down to around 6" from the bottom of the tank? If so, it's a pretty sure bet that your your siphon break failed... if not than it was probably not reverse flow.

Just curious if you have figured out the cause yet.

 

[redvipe2010]

Yes, I had a light flow going under the rocks. I'm pretty sure it was reverse flow that caused the flood. I have not found any other signs of leaking. My tank is now about 3/4 of the way filled again, and no leaks. I should have enough R/O water tomorrow to finish filling it. Only running power heads to keep water moving until I can get the plumbing issue fixed. I believe the only reason that I had 6" left was most likely because the power came back on before it had a chance to drain more.

 

[lglamb]

Have you looked at your siphon break to see if it's clogged
or something?

 

[redvipe2010]

Can't visually see a clog, I have not tried to run water through it yet. The tank and plumbing was torn apart with the help of people who know nothing about them while I was trying to take care of the fish and corals the night of the flood. A clogged siphon break or reverse flow never crossed my mind until much later, so it was never looked at initially. I was more concerned with saving live stock and cleaning up at the time. I think I was also in a state of shock seeing my tank, corals, fish, and house. There may have been something there. I will try to check the plumbing this weekend and try to figure out what happened.