Murphy's Law Strikes with a Vengeance

yaksplat

New member
Monday morning I left for Chicago to receive an award from the company that I work for. It's a pretty large global company, so this was a big deal. Unfortunately I could not take my wife since we have a two month old. Anyways, everything in my tank is doing great when I leave. On Wednesday, just before the award dinner I call my wife and ask her how our son and everything else is going. She says that everythign is going fine, the fish are doing fine, but for some reason there's no filtered water coming out of the tap. She said it's been like that for a couple days! I knew what had happened immediately.

The float switch stuck.......

I told her to go down in the basement and look at the sump. She said, "the water level looks a little high". I asked how high and she replied, "It's at the top". My sump is a 55 gallon tank that's usually about half full. There was nothing that I could do. I had never told her how to care for the tank outside of feeding the fish.

Thursday afternoon she picks me up at the airport. She says that the water is a little cloudy. As soon as we got home I ran over to the tank and check the damage. No corals are open and I can barely see the back of the tank. I checked the specific gravity of the water and it's at 1.012!!! I start an immediate water change with the 35 gallons of water that I have in a trashcan in the basement.


Well, as of now, the water isn't as cloudy. But there is a death toll:

All snails and crabs
5" green slimer
6" diameter red monti cap
8" green montipora altasepta (it was branching like crazy)
3" unknown acro (also lots of new branches)
small pocillapora, from kmagyar
22 headed frogspawn
3 headed green frogspawn
a rock of 15 pink ricordia

All of the surviving corals are bordeline right now, but i'm hoping that my large red milli survives.



we'll see
:(
 
I would raise the salinity slowly. At this time the damage is done, any other quick changes will only cause more problems.

I feel for you. I travel quite a bit so I have had to train my wife on more advanced operations of the tank, beyond feeding. So far I have not had any issues.
 
soo sorry for youre loss, its a nightmare for all of us. What brand floatswitch do you have ? so i know what not to buy.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7443740#post7443740 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by yaksplat
it was no fault of the switch, it had coralline growth on it...
Ah, that is why I was told to keep all float switching inside a PVC "holder" to prevent snails, algae, etc from affecting their performance. I did not understand it at first, but do now. Also, have redundant float switches.
 
Wow, yikes man I'm sorry to hear about your loss. Murphy and I become aquianted every day at work... Mercifully he hasn't stopped by my tank yet. Hope the rest of your items pull through.
 
Losing stuff is heartbreaking.
This is the second time in the past few months that somebody in the URS had a float stick (for one reason or another) and dilute their aquarium with freshwater.
If you use a float switch on your topoff system, use a float switch that won't jam (like a Lifereef float switch) or use a second float switch as a failsafe. Another failsafe is to limit the amount of water in the resevoir.
A single float tied into an RO unit hooked up to the aquarium for makeup water is a recipe for disaster.
 
I have a design that is quite easy and prevents problems like this, it came out of a tank wipout I had just like this.


Put your float switch in a box, in your sump. In that box put a couple of small holes so that the water from the float will slowly enter the tank, this prevents a broken float from changing the water perameters too quickly.

Make sure the top of the box is slightly below the top of the sump. This way if your sump over fills for some reason it will fill the box before overflowing.

In this box, there will be a hole above the shutoff point of your float. This hole goes through the sump wall and into a drain. This way if your float fails it will raise the water in your box only to the point of the drain hole.

The fresh water will not mix with the salt when the sump is as full as the drain hole.

This design is fool proof and your tank will never fill to a level that will kill inhabitants. A sketch was posted years ago but I don't think I can find it.
 
I prefer using a bucket filled with water then a switch that turns on or off a pump.... then put your float switch in there if some thing went wrong it would only dump about 5 gallons into the tank. then if it still goes on it will burn the pump out... but not kill the system.

JMHO
Brian
 
This can be hooked up to a faucet that constantly runs and will not fail. Because it is the difference is water height that causes the mix, if there is a failure the water levels will be the same and will not mix. Anyone is welcome to come by and see it. Willistein had a sketch, but that was years ago.

Back to the thread. Don't want to pirate.
 
I don't think it's hijacking or pirating, Kent.
Summer vacations are right around the corner and people need to have a solution to this problem. Failsafe topoffs are a must if they are automated. The best solution might be to have someone watch over your aquarium while you're gone.
Another suggestion (and this is what I personally do) is to monitor how much your aquarium evaporates in 24 hours. Depending on the size of the aquarium and it's rate of evaporation you might not want to use this method. Measure the distance the water level drops in the sump (or display aquarium if you don't have a sump) due to evap in a 24 hour period. Multiply the number of days you will be gone and add the makeup water prior to leaving. Make sure to add the makeup water slowly (over several days) because you will be dropping the salinity of your aquarium water. (I've never had this cause problems with any of my livestock.)
For example: the water level in your sump drops 1" every 24 hours due to evaporation. You will be gone on vacation 3 days. Add 3" of makeup water (slowly) in advance of departure.
In fish only systems this works especially great, but in reef aquaria you might want to monitor SG/salinity. I would never want my reef dropping below a S.G. of 1.023
I always calculate in an error rate (for evap) of about 10%
(This is in case the evapoartion rate increases while I'm away.)
 
lifereef floatswitch here ........with a maxi 600 in a 5 gal bucket. At any given faliure of the float switch I can only dose 5 gallons MAX.
 
kents auto top off.

100_1743.jpg
 
Sorry to hear it, I'm still recovering from the same type of issue.

Sounds like you lost a lot more than I did but without the water damage.

I hope you can save some livestock, you'll get through...
 
Kent

Kent

So Kent, about how big are the drain holes to the sump vs. the drain hole to the that goes out of the sump and into the drain. It sounds like one larger hole out of the sump box and sump to a drain (1/2"?) and several smaller holes out of the box (1/8"?) and into the sump?
Thanks
Joe A
 
I feel for you too. Have left the tank with the hubby a few times and come home to all sorts of problems. Right now I have a dog sitter taking care of it. Hope all is well when I get home. We will see. Stopped at a great reef shop in Melbourne FL this afternoon. Good thing I'm not going home for another week and I am going to Atlanta before I leave here. Would have had a bunch of new fish and corals. A beautiful place. Called Trident Fish.
 
if you buy 1 more float switch you can wire it so that if the water ever reaches a certain point it will automatically open and stop the pump or what ever you have feeding the sump with water.
it is actually quite simple to do. just have the water high float switch normally closed and in series with the rest of the switches. it would act as an emergency stop.
 
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