flood stories

Quinn · #1 03-30-2003, 04:48 AM

after approx. 4 months, i am nearly ready to fill my 150 gal (maybe one more month at the very most). i want to hear everyone's flood stories, to get it out of my system. everything is well planned in my eyes, and i think i'll be safe if i keep my head up, and a few gallons on the floor doesn't really scare me (i have one of those super shop-vacs, we used it to empty our hot tub

). but has anyone ever actually had an entire tank drain onto their floor, and what were the circumstances?

ranz · #2 03-30-2003, 05:44 AM

Tank was set up for only two weeks, I had been working on it all day and into the late night when I decided I will test the main shut off to my overflow...
Dont know what I was thinking? within two minutes Niagra Falls was in the middle of our house, looked worse then it really was beacuse water poored off three sides...

The hobby is edicting and late nights can cause floods due to tired stupidity....

Anyways since this accident I have taken some flood precations, directing stupidity (water) right into the crawlspace, beter then the foyer...

Ranzreef

Buccaneer · #3 03-30-2003, 07:24 AM

Actually happened only a few days ago ...

I built a dual beckett skimmer and hooked it up to my sump ... finished it late and set it to half way mark on the 6" x 18" first riser and went to bed ... checked it the next morning and no change at all ... went to work and asked my wife to look in on it every now and then ... no worries all day till about 5 pm she is making supper she decides to take another look and it had overflowed the cup AND the 5 gallon bucket that it drains to from the cup ... all over the floor in the fish room

So she is calling me on the phone to try and shut it down while supper is burning on the stove and sopping up water all at the same time ! ... helluva a wife I got

Beckett is running like a champ now and pulling all kinds of junk out of the water ( did not need to run both becketts yet )

Cheers

Rasta

sumpfinfishe · #4 03-30-2003, 09:14 AM

I have only done this once, ok twice- but don't tell anyone

working in the tank until all hours, replacing the cover and canopy and then powering on the return, but forgetting to replace the return line back into the tank

Canadian Man · #5 03-30-2003, 05:12 PM

Back in the very early days of my tank (and my reefing knowledge) I was running a fluval 404 on my 90g tank. At this point I had no sump. I was doing my monthly fluval mantainence, unplugged the fluval, disconnected the quick connect and took the filter to the sink to clean the media and inpeller. Once the fluval was clean I proceeded to put it back on line. I put the filter in place put the quick connect back on and plugged it in to the power outlet. I had to use the fancy gadget to prime the fluval a little and once it was running I noticed there was a little bit of a leak comming from the quick connect area. I looked like the compressiong fittings for the hose. I got my pliers and began tightnening the hose fittings and crack that's when the fitting broke.........Yes the plasic it self broke!

So the output fitting (the return back to the tank) was the one that broke so I had to flows to deal with. One was the output of the filter shooting everywhere and Two was the syphon created by the filters tube hanging over the tank.

So I unplugged the fluval and that stopped the one source and the other one I tried to plug with my hand witch of course worked but being under the stand and home alone I had no way of getting the hose out of the tank. I had to let it spill some more and then I just ripped the hose out of the tank.

So once that was all dont I spilled about 4" of water out of my 90g tank all over the floor and into the basement!

that's my worst spill story

ron101 · #6 03-30-2003, 05:35 PM

Another Fluval 404 story. The return line came unattached and oriented itself in such a way as to 'return' the water over the back of my 90 gal (FW at the time).

I came home to a half empty tank and very squishy carpet. Went to unplug everything to stop the funny noises and got a nice jolt. Had to move the fishies to spare tanks and tear down the 90 to wet vac the carpet and replace the underlay. Took a few days to get everything done and the carpet to dry out.

TANGOMAN · #7 03-30-2003, 11:14 PM

There appears to be two common factors here. Fatigue and Fluval. (If ya' look up Fluval in a Latin dictionary you will find "Flu" means to flood, "Val" means all over the floor when your not in the room...

. Oh, lighten up, I've got several Fluvals. Almost as many good memories as bad too.
One term has not been mentioned yet but I'll bet most of ya' got nailed a few times because of it. Temporary. Oh that's a word that is always accompanied by a statement like, "I should have finished it properly the first time".
When we first moved into this house last year I had a lot of temporaries in the basement...I also got ready for work and was aware of a "wet concrete smell" more times than I'd ever tell ya' 'cause you'd just think I was a clown...
So teevee, if I recall you live with your parents and they were so happy to see that reservoir go to the second floor of their home. How's about sayin' at dinner the other fish guys assured me it's not a question of if it will cause a flood, but when...

. (Post pictures)
A tank that size could always be used as coffin...

Quinn · #8 03-30-2003, 11:25 PM

hahaha well said! my sump isn't in the basement, by the way, assuming that's what you thought. nope, it's all in my bedroom. i feel a wave of nausea everytime i open my door (just kidding). i'm counting on careful planning and my massive shop-vac to take care of things, but if it ever gets serious... there will be a 150 gal available on the buy/sell forum.

honestly though, i expect this to be one heck of an adventure. getting the tank up the stairs with two people was enough fun, wait till it's set up!

Bob I · #9 03-30-2003, 11:27 PM

I was just watching a movie in which the bathtub on the second floor overflowed. As the water ran down the stairs, I could not help thinking of Teevee. I was thinking that he is not all that tall, and you only have to bend his legs a bit to get him to fit in the tank for burial.

Quinn · #10 03-30-2003, 11:37 PM

i would definently fit into the tank. there's some guy on RC who's signature is something like "when i die, cremate me and put my ashes in my deep sand bed". but i have no DSB so i guess that won't work for me.