Mdwannabe
New member
Ok, most of you know I am in the process of getting my tank back in shape after ignoring it for the last 7 months or so. Yes I know I'm bad.
So, after cleaning the front glass, I noticed a lot of bubble algae on the grates in both my overflow's. I thought "Easy enough, take them out, put them on the front porch until algae dry's out, clean them then put them back in".....WRONG!
Yesterday I woke up, checked the tank and air was coming out the supply discharges, no problem "I Thought" sump is low, put water in and everything is fine.
SO, I go down to the sump room and sure enough the water was low, I grabbed..not 1 or 2 gallons of water....but 5 (it's a 75 and can handle 5 gallons ...no problem), and into the sump it went. That's when I knew I had a problem, the 5 gallons in, was gone inside of a minute, and then the disaster of it hit me, I suddenly hear a waterfall of water coming through the hole in the floor that leads into the crawl space where my sump is located. Even worse, the waterfall was following the electric lines that power my MH ballast's (x3).
So after the electric circuit trips, I go upstairs to see 5 gallons of water running out the top of the tank onto (the new) carpet. Once the waterfall stopped I took a pitcher and drained at least another gallon of water out, so I could leave the pumps run, even if they did suck some air. I was already late for work and had no options available to me, people don't much care about you're problems when they are asleep on an OR table waiting to have surgery, nor do the surgeons.
The best part of this is that Lisa (my wife, at least she was) had been out of town for 5 day's and was coming home that day at about noon. I called her on her cell on my way in just to tell her what she was walking into.....that was fun, lot's of single syllable words were heard in that conversation (though none were from me).
What caused it? Yep, you guessed it, in taking the grates out of the overflow's, I never thought about the size or shape of a snail. One crawled in, got sucked down the (right) overflow, and made a perfect seal on the discharge pipe. 2 gallons of water into a wet/dry vacuum, pulling the overflow stand pipe, and a quick look with a flashlight, and there he/she or it was, point down in the discharge connection making a perfect seal, I had lost half my return flow.
After writing this post I'm going into the sump room with new electric connections and timers, hoping the ballast's still work.
I just thought you folks should know what caused it, when my next post is looking for somewhere to live.
I love my tank, but I'm not sure my wife still loves me
The King of Stupid:
Rick
So, after cleaning the front glass, I noticed a lot of bubble algae on the grates in both my overflow's. I thought "Easy enough, take them out, put them on the front porch until algae dry's out, clean them then put them back in".....WRONG!
Yesterday I woke up, checked the tank and air was coming out the supply discharges, no problem "I Thought" sump is low, put water in and everything is fine.
SO, I go down to the sump room and sure enough the water was low, I grabbed..not 1 or 2 gallons of water....but 5 (it's a 75 and can handle 5 gallons ...no problem), and into the sump it went. That's when I knew I had a problem, the 5 gallons in, was gone inside of a minute, and then the disaster of it hit me, I suddenly hear a waterfall of water coming through the hole in the floor that leads into the crawl space where my sump is located. Even worse, the waterfall was following the electric lines that power my MH ballast's (x3).
So after the electric circuit trips, I go upstairs to see 5 gallons of water running out the top of the tank onto (the new) carpet. Once the waterfall stopped I took a pitcher and drained at least another gallon of water out, so I could leave the pumps run, even if they did suck some air. I was already late for work and had no options available to me, people don't much care about you're problems when they are asleep on an OR table waiting to have surgery, nor do the surgeons.
The best part of this is that Lisa (my wife, at least she was) had been out of town for 5 day's and was coming home that day at about noon. I called her on her cell on my way in just to tell her what she was walking into.....that was fun, lot's of single syllable words were heard in that conversation (though none were from me).
What caused it? Yep, you guessed it, in taking the grates out of the overflow's, I never thought about the size or shape of a snail. One crawled in, got sucked down the (right) overflow, and made a perfect seal on the discharge pipe. 2 gallons of water into a wet/dry vacuum, pulling the overflow stand pipe, and a quick look with a flashlight, and there he/she or it was, point down in the discharge connection making a perfect seal, I had lost half my return flow.
After writing this post I'm going into the sump room with new electric connections and timers, hoping the ballast's still work.
I just thought you folks should know what caused it, when my next post is looking for somewhere to live.
I love my tank, but I'm not sure my wife still loves me
The King of Stupid:
Rick
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