Oh, No, Flood

Paul B · Aug 9, 2013

If you are in this long enough, and if you live long enough, you will have "a" flood, more likely, many floods but if you are lucky, you won't have to build an ark.
This week we are watching our Granddaughter Greta and we took her to breakfast then to the pool. On the way out I noticed my skimmer along with the new bio ball chamber was empty. That happens if the five gallon bucket under it fills. There is an auto shut off that prevents floods. It has almost always worked unless I forget to position the bucket under the drain from the skimmer. But when you are watching a one year old, strange things happen. :smash:
I am not sure why the bucket filled but it did. I think it was because I just added this bio ball chamber as a test and yesterday I dumped it out to adjust something and I know those bio balls do not like to stop tumbling.
Anyway, I started up the skimmer and we ran out to take Greta to breakfast and the pool. When I came home and checked the skimmer. OMG, Noah's flood. The skimmer was overflowing like crazy and the effluent was pouring on the floor. The tank is in a closet in the finished basement with furnature, rugs and all. About an inch of water came out of the tank, but it keeps filling, great. So I shut the skimmer, get the shop vac and start pulling stuff out of the closet. Being a fish Geek, I know floods are inevidable so most of the stuff on the floor in that closet is water proofed. But we have our high school albums, old projectors and wedding movies in a plastic bag as well as about 100 old record albums. Records are round things that spin and music sticks to it. I wanted an excuse to dump them anyway, but unfortunately they didn't get wet enough to dump. :nono:As I was cleaning the floor I also noticed a fish laying there. He must have known that I would be upset at the flood and commited suicide. He is a small fish and I don't know what it is yet. I have a lot of small fish that I have no idea what they are anyway so I am not all broken up about him.
My salinity is now probably so weak I can keep kissing gourami's in there along with the corals but I am not sure if kissing gourami's are reef safe. :der:

Reefing Madness · Aug 9, 2013

revhtree · Aug 9, 2013

Oh man sorry! Yea I have experienced this a few times!

cdness · Aug 9, 2013

Sorry to hear about the issues, but they are inevitable and being in the hobby for so long you have more than likely experienced more than your fair share of floods or equipment issues...

Due to my tank being on a second floor of a duplex and prior at third floor apartments, I have always feared the inevitable flood. Wherever I can I have tried to prevent issues, but they still happen sometimes. I see many people with the external skimmers or skimmer draining directly to a floor drain and cringe as I know how often my skimmer goes nuts. I don't even have to do anything and it overflows. For that reason, any my general luck with things, I have chosen to keep only internal skimmers. At least it overflows back into the sump if something causes it to go nuts.

Hopefully your salinity didn't drop too much and kill off the corals. Keep us posted.

Mike J. · Aug 9, 2013

I had a flood about two years ago. About 15 gallons, so don't know if that qualifies as a flood or just a spill. The reason it is a flood in my mind was that it was on a two week old, six inch oak plank floor. Of course it buckled it. A large fan blowing full speed is your best friend now.

Palting · Aug 9, 2013

Only PaulB can turn a flood into an amusing entertaining anecdote. Sorry to hear, Paul. If you still want to get rid of those vinyl discs with music stuck to them, I can take them off your hands.

SoFlowRubiosCorals · Aug 9, 2013

Flooding in our hobby is always going to happen

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Paul B · Aug 9, 2013

These occurances allow me to enjoy my hobby more fully. As was said, floods are inevidable (as Noah found out) I have a fail safe that prevents floods, but of course I have to have the thing set correctly, and when you are babysitting a one year old, you screw things up. I have this wonderful absorbant material also, it is called a carpet. :fear:There is a bucket under my skimmer and there is a wire in it connected to the GFCI that runs the skimmer pump. When that bucket fills, the wire gets wet, tripping the GFCI and the skimmer pump goes off. But I quickly emptied the bucket and when I put it back, I didn't position the skimmer hose over the bucket and about five gallons of water went on the floor.
So now, I will build a fail safe to back up the first fail safe. It just gives me the opportunity to build things. I have it designed and will install it when this Polywog goes home later today. It's all part of the hobby.
I added some salt to my UG filter and will add some more to bring the salinity back up. The animals will get over it, except for the guy who jumped out. I don't know what kind of fish that was as it was small and I have a lot of small fish. It was his choice as he could have lived a nice comfortable life in the tank, but I think he wanted to spite me because I ahve not had much time for the tank lately as it is boating season.
A boat with a kitchen and bed is a necessity because when there is a flood, I may need an emergency place to live for a while, if you know what I mean. :help:

redtop03 · Aug 9, 2013

in spite of having the flood, being with the grandbaby is way more important, hopefully the drop in salinity dont harm your livestock and your tank recovers from it, if there's a tank anywhere on the planet that can survive, it is yours...

sorry to hear of the flood though, I'd bet the bio media made the skimmer go crazy, seems everytime I add anything to my tank, the skimmer goes into flood the floor mode, I do now have a shut off system in the skimmate bucket to shut down the skimmer pump if the bucket gets much over half full, 5 gallons of nasty skimmate in a bucket looks like 50 gallons on the floor and it don't smell too pretty either, it only happened 2 times before I decided to add the fail safe though LOL

Paul B · Aug 9, 2013

The last time the bucket overflowed was when I used to have a urchin collection business and I used to keep them in a refrigerated tank. I had to many and put 24 of them in my reef. I must have walked in front of my tank in my underware or something, because all 24 urchins decided to spawn at the same time. Maybe it was my wife, I don't remember, anyway, 24 urchins put out a lot of slimy fluid and my skimmer overflowed about 15 gallons. Carpets absorb a lot, they stink nice also so you have to change them. That is the reason I installed the first fail safe which usually works. Now I will install a fail safe for the fail safe and have a back up for that. I am also in the process of designing an auto level for the skimmer so it stays at the level I want it to stay, that will work with a lazer beam. But it is still in my head and things in there have a habit of morphing into other things for other projects.State of the art skimmer (in 1980)