Well...it has been a fun filled weekend for me, NOT! It all started Friday morning with my filter sock over filling and I felt some water on the carpet, thinking nothing of it I replaced the filter sock and assumed that was the cause of the leak. Saturday morning wife said the carpet isn't exactly dry so I instructed her to draw a line where the water level is on the sump and also to turn off the autotop-off, sure enough by the time I got home from work the water level has dropped an inch. Upon closer inspection I realize there is a small crack on the bottom corner of the sump about an inch long. At this point I had no choice but to call in the reinforcement.
First attempt to fix the crack.
Jim from OA and Peter Apexifd (Thank you very much for your help)
Draining the sump.
Peter trying to seal the crack with 2 pieces of glass that Jim cut.
Finished product.
So I waited over night for the silicone to set and woke up early Sunday morning to prep everything else for the refill. I was so happy that I am in the clear but little did I know its only the begining. I had dinner plans with a few friend so by the time I got back it was late already. It didn;t help that Peter forgot to seal the rest of the corner with silicone and we had to apply on Sunday. As soon as the silicone felt dry I started to fill the tank and guess what, SNAP! the friken thing cracked all the way up.
At this point I was so ready to pack up and sell everything but through the support from my buds here and the kindness of Wayne (ricereef), who offered to come all the way over from the island just to help right from the get go and Brad (aquattro) , who offered me his sump to use for the time being, I decided not to give up and do some major damage control. I made some arrangements to head out to the island the next day to pick up the sump. It was a good trip for all the wrong reasons. Thanks for the sump Brad and wayne for the lunch.
Round 2
Cleaned out the old sump Monday night after we retrived the new sump from Victoria. I cleaned the new sump out and feeling pretty good. As we proceeded to remove the old sump my buddy hits the down pipe and it craked the bulk head. MF please, water falling everywhere from the overflow. FML. I just couldn't believe it. I was so ****ed off I was lost for words. Anyways long story short, after removing the 12 ai sol wiring and all, off comes the canopy. I cleaned and replaced the bulkhead but had to modify a **** load of stuff. 4a.m. I am by myself still trying to get the frag tank back on line. I said f it, I'll do it tomorrow.
Here is a picture of my buddy cleaning up the tank. (I had my non-reef friends also helping out) Man its good to have reliable friends.
still having a good time.
Tuesday evening and really lacking sleep.
Finally everything is back on line.
Lost 2 colonies, 6 frags and a wrasse that was inside the overflow. I did;t even knwo until I went to put the new bulkhead in. RIP
New sump is on its way but 600 bucks later plus another trip to the island to pick it up 320, lost corals 200, lost fish 100 but friends that are willing to help out anytime of the day, PRICELESS!
I guess the moral of the story is make sure you have good friend.
THANKS AGAIN GUYS, SORRY TO PUT YOU GUYS THROUGH ALL THIS ****.