Woke up to a disaster at 3am this morning

[Noobeef]

I had a horror story that's similar that ended up OK. I woke up in the middle of the night to here a pump running dry, and I knew immediately the tank had to be leaking. I ran out to the living room to see my 29g half empty. I stopped in the puddle forming in front of the tank. God was with me on that one cause there was a surge protector sitting in about an inch of water that didn't electrocute me. Yea for my idiocy.

The bottom pane had cracked. I was able to grab my QT tank (10 gallon and stuff all the live rock, corals and fish into it. The only things that ended up dying were a couple snails and my aquarium innocence.

My tank is now a 115 gallon (under construction) and is standing on hardwood flooring. I have since made sure that there is NEVER a surge protector on the floor where a flood could get to it and my tank has a dedicated circuit with a GFI. Floods are scary, but mine was a blessing in disguise because it made me rethink the way I handle electricity.

 

[Uncle Salty 05]

Sorry to hear of your mishap.
In answer to your question, yes they do make brass versions of the Y connectors. That is what I use.
I would never use the rubber hoses in some of the pictures I saw either.
Braided stainless steel all the way.
There was a story on 60 minutes or one of those news shows about how much insurance companies pay out each year because people leave on vacation and the line leading to their washer blows and water flows for days.
Neighbors seeing water pouring out the front door is the first indicator.

 

[aleonn]

I had a horror story that's similar that ended up OK. I woke up in the middle of the night to here a pump running dry, and I knew immediately the tank had to be leaking. I ran out to the living room to see my 29g half empty. I stopped in the puddle forming in front of the tank. God was with me on that one cause there was a surge protector sitting in about an inch of water that didn't electrocute me. Yea for my idiocy.

The bottom pane had cracked. I was able to grab my QT tank (10 gallon and stuff all the live rock, corals and fish into it. The only things that ended up dying were a couple snails and my aquarium innocence.

My tank is now a 115 gallon (under construction) and is standing on hardwood flooring. I have since made sure that there is NEVER a surge protector on the floor where a flood could get to it and my tank has a dedicated circuit with a GFI. Floods are scary, but mine was a blessing in disguise because it made me rethink the way I handle electricity.

Holy cow, that's a scary thought. Glad you now have a GFCI. I have to consider a wet floor alarm or something on my controller.

 

[bigdog0598]

WOW....makes me glad that the RODI is in the garage and tank on tile....Also if your married....god help you i could only imagine my wife.....WOW!

 

[ahud]

I had a leaking canister filter drain a 65 gallon tank while I was away for the weekend. Called a professional carpet cleaner who used a suction matt type thing. I think he charged me $120 which is way less than buying/renting a lot of equipment. I did not replace the pad and I am still living in the same apartment, the spill was 4 months ago.

 

[Sharpie_]

I've worked for two years doing carpet removal for a team (they do the install), depending on the underpad yes mold can set in quickly. If it's a standard composite foam mat then you'll be fine so long as it's dried out. If it's a fiber woven mat then you very well may have to say goodbye to it, or at least get air moving under that as well.

When ripping out carpet in dorm rooms at McMaster University, we encountered an entire floor (50+ apartments) of green mold on top of the carpet. A carpet cleaning company had a week prior cleaned the carpets and then shut the doors on the rooms (I just now for the first time questioned as to why they cleaned it... maybe the mold was why that floor was on ripout??). We were required to wear our hasmat suits, gloves, goggles, and respirators for the rip out.

Lesson being: if you do in fact notice mold, it can and will spread. The stuff is mucho dangerous and needs to be dealt with accordingly. I have seen and experienced full floods dry up with the aid of a few large fans and no ill effects come of it though.

Best of luck and I HTH.

 

[brucoh]

Well, the fans are doing a great job of drying things out. I've got them rented for a week and I'm going to run them the whole time to make sure everything is dry. I've pulled up more carpet and exposed everything that got wet. It could of been a lot worse.

Sad thing is that I had to take down my tank tonight. Water got around and under it and it has one of those particle board Oceanic stands and I could feel the bottom edges starting to expand and warp. I had to get it out of the way anyway so I could dry the carpet around it. Sucks though, because I've had this tank going in its current form since the end of may and it been the best looking tank I've had so far. It's only a 50 gal Oceanic so I split everything between a 20 long and a 20 high for now. I'm just paranoid about the water damage to my stand, so this will give me an excuse to build a real one. Might be a while on that though, I'll be extremely busy at work for the rest of the year.