Things that make you say Oh S**t!

[dsaundry]

I have a shop vac, but at 11pm the wife would kill me for that too...call it double trouble.

[jon.smolders]

Yup, I've done the "forget the RO filling a 5 gallon bucket."

I also went on Vacation for a week, and came back to find my 60 gallon tank half empty... powerheads barely running (I didn't have a sump at this point). I think the HOB skimmer overflowed somehow and pulled 30 gallons of water out. Thankfully everything was ok.

Then there was the time I was up for some unknown reason at midnight (thankfully), and I heard a sound of water... I thought "what's my wife doing having a shower at this time of night when she has to work in the morning?" The flexible hose popped off the return pump (in sump, and therefore no hose clamp) and it was shooting water at 700GPH all over the inside of my stand. I had to tear the tank down to dry out the carpet in our apartment.

The worst I think was when I was working with some live rock in a tote. I had a heater and a powerhead running in it. The next thing I know I'm grabbing the powerbar out of the water before I realize that I could have been seriously electrocuted if it were not for the AFCI breaker in the panel popping. That was scary.

[dsaundry]

Aren't these tales of woe fun, makes you feel so not alone in our errors. Come on everybody ....Tell the truth and the tales of your errors in reefkeeping.

[muck]

This thread has Lance all over it...

[randallino]

Bid there done that got the t-shirt.......
Nothing like having to leave work early because of a flood, forgetting about filling a top-up container and then going to work.

[Sean]

I woke up one morning had my shower and had one foot out the door when I heard my tank pump spitting air bubbles into the tank. Then I remember that i just filled the tank with water the night before. Turns out the cat had fun playing with the plumbing.

[tidal_waters]

1) used a coral life HOB super skimmer 65, and almost burnt the place down, not once but twice! waking up to the smell of smoke is not pleasant way to start the day.

2) built a DIY overflow, lost its feed and the display tank almost flooded. Thankfully the GF was home.

3) a panty hose is not a good substitute for a filter sock. had my panty hose clog up and spilled over the side of the sump all night. woke up next morning to quite the mess.

4) Turn on RO unit, forget to turn on timer, leave for the rest of the afternoon and have dinner return 6 hours later to a nice lagoon! Now the RO unit is in the downstairs bath tub.

[MMAX]

Sounds like I'm not the only one who forgets to turn off the RO unit. I've done this not once but probably about 10 times. I have to re-do a wall in my basement bathroom now before mold takes over.