Rebuild and recovery of a dead tank

[Aquarist007]

I just came up from my basement fish room after spending two hours mopping up after two floods. The first one at 5.30 for unknown reasons and the second one about 10.00pm because a snail crawled into the refugium line and it overflowed about 20 gals
Needless to say I was a little ticked off--but after reading this thread I am humbled by what you and your wife have gone through and survived together.
From now on I will remember this thread when I get the measely 5 -20 gal floods occasionally.

I wish you all the luck in this hobby and will continue to follow your interesting thread.

 

[jason2459]

Thanks Capn. That's terrible news about the flooding. I'm super paranoid about flooding now. One of the reasons I'm going to attempt to drill a 1.25in hole and slide in a 1/2 piping into my skimmer's collection cup to drain straight into a drain. Was going to have it go into a collection bucket but realized why not straight into a drain.

No one around here has uniseals so got one ordered online and will attempt to not destroy the collection cup. My neighbor has a drill press and will ask him to see if I could use that. Got a drill bit made for metal, plastic, acrylic, etc... Bulk head would be to big for this small HOB skimmer and a uniseal seemed perfect.

I ordered a red sea ozonizer from DFS and will hook it up to the skimmer. I have everything else hooked up and ready for the dolomite, dead rock, and water. Should be getting the dolomite in the next couple days. Got the shipping confirmation on Monday and is being sent priority mail.

 

[jason2459]

Well, found a site that has given me exactly the idea I need to put together an ATO. I'll have a 5 gallon bucket under the stand to pump RO/DI water into manually. Use the aqualifter to pump water into the tank. No worries with that pump if the res. runs dry.

Will have two float sensors to turn off the pump when the water is at the desired level. One at about 2in down from the top and the other at about 1in down from the top as a fail safe. Also, a third float sensor about three inches down in the opposite position to turn the pump off if the tank is some how drained (ie. skimmer going nutso or even worse tank failure leaking water). Each sensor will be encased in a pvc house with caps and drilled holes to prevent critters crawling on them and ripple action on top of the water switching them on and off.

If all the two top float switches fail because they got salt creep or anything else that might make them stick between periodic cleanings I'll have a gri water sensor mounted on the floor to turn the pump off.

Hopefully it'll be as failsafe as possible. All sensors will be controlling a 12v relay switching a standard power cord to the pump. IF total failure happens I'll probably only be keeping about 3 gallons of water in the top of container at a time which I'm guessing will last about a week from the last time I had this tank setup.

Yes, I'm paranoid about water flooding now. lol

BTW, got the setup idea from a website that deals with auto top off and is a dot com. Kind of put all that together and you have the website name. Not sure what this forums policy is on listing sites that are not sponsors so I'll leave it at that until I get the lay of the land down more around here.

 

[Paul B]

I have a 5 gallon bucket under my skimmer which also catches the effluent. I built a float switch out of a GFI. When the water gets too high in the bucket, the GFI turns off the pumps to the skimmer. It has saved me from numerous floods.
I also built the same thing under my domestic water heater.
If there is a leak, the intake water shuts off with an electric valve.

 

[fishnub]

way to bounce back!

 

[EnglishRebel]

Sorry to hear about your bad luck. I know the house was your major loss but that AH was a nice car (I restored a 64 TR4 15 years ago).
Paul
I had the water valve on my almost brand new dishwasher stick open and flood my hardwood floor. Fortunately I caught it in time when my wife came home and said 'where's all that water in the basement coming from'. I had to replace about six or eight T&G boards. After that I got one of these (so I can sleep at night). They have a 3/8" compression fitting.
Floodstop The name doesn't refer to the OPs flood though (wish it could).

 

[jason2459]

Wish there was a multi-quote feature on this forum, unless I'm missing something.

@Paul B. That's a great idea with the gfci and the water heater. I'm going to need to replace ours pretty soon anyways as it's just over 12 years old now. I could hook something like that up at the same time. I was just thinking the collection bucket idea might be a better choice instead of dumping straight into the drain. With that setup I wont need to look a good 4in of water in the tank because as soon as it goes over flowing it will shut it off and protect the pump from running dry.

@fishnub: Thanks. It's been a long road and still going. We're still waiting to find out if our house will get bought out or not. Luckily the governor here started something called the Jumpstart program and is paying on the mortgage of that house until they find out if it will get bought out. We would have had to foreclose on it if they weren't. I think it's harder on the wife then it is me. I'm just happy we have each other, our health, and looking forward to our new baby boy. I like to look forward and not backward.

 

[jason2459]

Opps missed your post Alan. Yeah the AH was irreplaceable. I could eventually go out and buy another one but it would never be the same. It was more of the fact it came from my grandfather and he had bought it brand new in 67. I looked at what it would take to restore it after that but that flood water was so toxic and corrosive it ate through everything. I would have had to replace every single part basically. Metal that was up in the top part of my garage was rusting that didn't even get wet.

 

[Paul B]

English that looks like a good item.
Jason I build them out of GFIs because I was an electrician and I have a bunch of them. They are only 12 bucks anyway. I just take a plastic pipe from the GFI outlet and use the neutral and ground from the load side of the GFI and lay that on the floor. or in a bucket for a float switch. It is of course not legal to do it that way but it works fine and as long as you use the neutral from the GFI you will not get a shock.

 

[jason2459]

Got the gravel in today and rinsed out.

I really like the look of it. Almost looks crystalish or rock salt like. 50lbs filled in about an 1.5in and stopped there. Still deciding if I want to put any in the regufium or not. probably wont. I do have some dead rock in there though.

Here's an idea of what the size of the gravel looks like.

Setup the rock the way I think I want it for right now. Took pics with just the actinic on as everything looks totally bleached out with everything on.

 

[jason2459]

opps, hit submit on accident. Here's a couple more.

 

[Aquarist007]

how much did you pay for the bag of dolomite?

 

[jason2459]

Capn, Here's the order confirmation.

Order amount: $120.50
Shipping Cost: $87.34
Shipping Method: Ground with Shipping Insurance Weight=105

It was the only place that I could find dolomite that wasn't coated in an epoxy resin for freshwater tanks.

 

[Rae C.]

You're doing a RUGF aren't you?

 

[jason2459]

Rae, that's the plan so far. I hear it's going to be a miserable experience though that I'll regret in about 40 years.

 

[Paul B]

Oh thats your tank. I thought it was a picture of my tank.

Dolomite? RUGF? Are you crazy man?

 

[jason2459]

I think it's a result of a mid-life crises. Some guys get a fancy sport car and feel rebelious... I get a RUGF w/ dolomite!

 

[Paul B]

I am past my mid life crises and am into my late life crises

 

[Aquarist007]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15413574#post15413574 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Paul B
I am past my mid life crises and am into my late life crises

and you just bought a new boat:lol:

 

[Aquarist007]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15412633#post15412633 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jason2459
Rae, that's the plan so far. I hear it's going to be a miserable experience though that I'll regret in about 40 years.

please take pictures step by step.
Although Paul has been very detailed in his construction of a rugf pictures would help and I don't think he is about to take his apart to post some