Paul B
10K Club member
Excellence Award
Reef Tank 365
Reef Of The Month
Article Contributor
Rock Pool Reef Keepers
It started out as a great day. Last night we went out to dinner on the boat with friends and today I was going to start bringing stuff home from the boat and get ready for winter.
I go past my reef tank and notice that it is very quiet. I don't hear the pumps but the lights are on. The GFI is tripped for the pumps. No big deal I go to put on the GFI (or GFCI as you guys call them) and it doesn't go on. Alright, I will fix that later and I plug the pump into another outlet. One pump still doesn't work so I remove it figuring that is what tripped the GFI and I go to install another powerhead. These are Korilia's with that magnet that you put on the outside of the glass. The magnet falls behind the tank and the tank is built into a closet under a staircase. Of course the thing falls to the most in accessable part of the closet, all the way under the stairs in Never Never land. I don't want to pull everything out of the closet so I get on my hands and knees and start crawling under the tank between old 8 MM projectors and forgotten wedding slides. I see the magnet and reach for it. While I am reaching, I also find some old forgotten fish mummies that could be from the Nixon administration. I stretch for the magnet and WHOOOOSH. Niagara Falls starts pouring onto my back. Where is it coming from? I thought I broke the tank. OMG it is pouring all over me like those wierdios fall all over Lady GaGa. I am instantly soaked but I am still on my belly in this closet stuck between my wedding movies and 200 LP records from the 60s. Probably a bunch of Four Seasons, Elvis and Spiral Staircase records. Now as that is not enough, I am getting shocked. The water is pouring over my wiring and then on me. I pull myself back as fast as I could, which isn't very fast and I see the source of the water. The 3/4" valve that I have on the bottom of my home made 5' skimmer broke off clean. I must have hit it with my back as I was inch worming into the closet. I open that valve to do water changes. I stick my finger into the hole and stop the water. But the pumps are still pumping water into the skimmer, I am getting shocked as my socks are soaked and my wife is out. OMG now what am I going to do? I pull out the plugs on the pumps so no more water goes into the skimmer but there is still 5 gallons of water in the skimmer and maybe 7 gallons on me. I hear these splashing sounds as now the tank is about 3" low (I don't have a sump) I lay on the floor in the flood and with my toes I am just able to reach a bucket that I removed to get into the closet. I slide it over to the skimmer and let out the remaining water. Now, for the moment no water is leaking so I go and change my clothes and get some towels. I unplug the rest of the wires so I stopped getting shocked. Not everything in that closet is on a GFI. I want the water flowing into the skimmer because it feeds my algae trough that is filled with tiny tube worms and it took years for that to happen. I can just about hear them screaming. I look for a valve in my parts places (I can build a space shuttle with the stuff I have laying around. A small space shuttle but a space shuttle none the less.
But no valve the right size. Al I have that will fit in the hole is a barb fitting. So I remove the part of the broken valve and put in the barb fitting. Then I get a hose and put it on the barb fitting hoping that the hose is long enough to reach the top of the skimmer and I will be able to temporarilly turn on the skimmer water. The hose isn't long enough so I search around and find another hose that fits tightly into it. I put it all together and turn on the pump. Great, i could hear the sigh of relief from the tube worms and brittle stars as they took their first few breaths. Then disaster struck again. The two hoses I put together came apart. Water shooting everywhere, I grab the hose and again stick my finger in it. I have a small flashlight on the tank edge and it fits snugly into the hose. Fixed again. But now the water in the tank is about 4" down. I don't have any water mixed and the powerhead that is working is splashing water on the walls as it is almost out of the water. I pull the plug and say a Novena to Saint Peter that my wife doesn't come back home.
Then I mix some ASW and throw it in the tank. I didn't test the salinity or mix it very well but from experience I know it was close and the hermit crabs could mix it up if they want. The fish will get over it. Now all seems to be well, I run to the hardware store and buy a valve. I replace the valve and notice that half my LEDs are out.
OMG again. Now what? I have been meaning to re build that home made LED fixture but I wasn't planning to do it in the middle of Noah's flood. So I remove the 5' LED fixture and test it. Salt creep shorted 8 lights out. But I am fairly smart and I have some LEDs. I solder in new LEDs and while I am at it I re wired the thing into a plug so I can now un plug the fixture from the drivers and remove it on two pieces. It was impossable for me to rmove this fixture myself as it is very long and is connected to a box of remote drivers. Now everything seems to be working except I still can't get that GFI on. My automatic DIY leak detector that shuts off the pumps in case of a skimmer overflow is soaked from the flood and I can't dry it. I will have to build another one but it is no big deal. Just something else to do in the midst of a flood when I could be working on my boat.
Now I can't find one bananafish or the very pregnant mandarin and figure they may be those dusty fish I found under the tank but they can be replaced and i didn't soak the carpet to much as the last time this happened I installed a barrier in the closet to keep the water from traveling out of the closet. The animals don't seem to care that they had to mix their own water and almost everything is back to normal. To fix my DIY leak detector and get that GFCI back on I will have to wait for everything to dry as I have to take the outlet apart and build a new leak detector.
My Ozonizer croaked yesterday and I have it completely pulled apart on my workbench but the reaction chamber is rotted out and I am not sure if I can build another one. I have parts from two units but only one reaction chamber.
I can't wait to lay on my new Sleep Number bed tonight to see if it explodes.
I go past my reef tank and notice that it is very quiet. I don't hear the pumps but the lights are on. The GFI is tripped for the pumps. No big deal I go to put on the GFI (or GFCI as you guys call them) and it doesn't go on. Alright, I will fix that later and I plug the pump into another outlet. One pump still doesn't work so I remove it figuring that is what tripped the GFI and I go to install another powerhead. These are Korilia's with that magnet that you put on the outside of the glass. The magnet falls behind the tank and the tank is built into a closet under a staircase. Of course the thing falls to the most in accessable part of the closet, all the way under the stairs in Never Never land. I don't want to pull everything out of the closet so I get on my hands and knees and start crawling under the tank between old 8 MM projectors and forgotten wedding slides. I see the magnet and reach for it. While I am reaching, I also find some old forgotten fish mummies that could be from the Nixon administration. I stretch for the magnet and WHOOOOSH. Niagara Falls starts pouring onto my back. Where is it coming from? I thought I broke the tank. OMG it is pouring all over me like those wierdios fall all over Lady GaGa. I am instantly soaked but I am still on my belly in this closet stuck between my wedding movies and 200 LP records from the 60s. Probably a bunch of Four Seasons, Elvis and Spiral Staircase records. Now as that is not enough, I am getting shocked. The water is pouring over my wiring and then on me. I pull myself back as fast as I could, which isn't very fast and I see the source of the water. The 3/4" valve that I have on the bottom of my home made 5' skimmer broke off clean. I must have hit it with my back as I was inch worming into the closet. I open that valve to do water changes. I stick my finger into the hole and stop the water. But the pumps are still pumping water into the skimmer, I am getting shocked as my socks are soaked and my wife is out. OMG now what am I going to do? I pull out the plugs on the pumps so no more water goes into the skimmer but there is still 5 gallons of water in the skimmer and maybe 7 gallons on me. I hear these splashing sounds as now the tank is about 3" low (I don't have a sump) I lay on the floor in the flood and with my toes I am just able to reach a bucket that I removed to get into the closet. I slide it over to the skimmer and let out the remaining water. Now, for the moment no water is leaking so I go and change my clothes and get some towels. I unplug the rest of the wires so I stopped getting shocked. Not everything in that closet is on a GFI. I want the water flowing into the skimmer because it feeds my algae trough that is filled with tiny tube worms and it took years for that to happen. I can just about hear them screaming. I look for a valve in my parts places (I can build a space shuttle with the stuff I have laying around. A small space shuttle but a space shuttle none the less.
But no valve the right size. Al I have that will fit in the hole is a barb fitting. So I remove the part of the broken valve and put in the barb fitting. Then I get a hose and put it on the barb fitting hoping that the hose is long enough to reach the top of the skimmer and I will be able to temporarilly turn on the skimmer water. The hose isn't long enough so I search around and find another hose that fits tightly into it. I put it all together and turn on the pump. Great, i could hear the sigh of relief from the tube worms and brittle stars as they took their first few breaths. Then disaster struck again. The two hoses I put together came apart. Water shooting everywhere, I grab the hose and again stick my finger in it. I have a small flashlight on the tank edge and it fits snugly into the hose. Fixed again. But now the water in the tank is about 4" down. I don't have any water mixed and the powerhead that is working is splashing water on the walls as it is almost out of the water. I pull the plug and say a Novena to Saint Peter that my wife doesn't come back home.
Then I mix some ASW and throw it in the tank. I didn't test the salinity or mix it very well but from experience I know it was close and the hermit crabs could mix it up if they want. The fish will get over it. Now all seems to be well, I run to the hardware store and buy a valve. I replace the valve and notice that half my LEDs are out.
OMG again. Now what? I have been meaning to re build that home made LED fixture but I wasn't planning to do it in the middle of Noah's flood. So I remove the 5' LED fixture and test it. Salt creep shorted 8 lights out. But I am fairly smart and I have some LEDs. I solder in new LEDs and while I am at it I re wired the thing into a plug so I can now un plug the fixture from the drivers and remove it on two pieces. It was impossable for me to rmove this fixture myself as it is very long and is connected to a box of remote drivers. Now everything seems to be working except I still can't get that GFI on. My automatic DIY leak detector that shuts off the pumps in case of a skimmer overflow is soaked from the flood and I can't dry it. I will have to build another one but it is no big deal. Just something else to do in the midst of a flood when I could be working on my boat.
Now I can't find one bananafish or the very pregnant mandarin and figure they may be those dusty fish I found under the tank but they can be replaced and i didn't soak the carpet to much as the last time this happened I installed a barrier in the closet to keep the water from traveling out of the closet. The animals don't seem to care that they had to mix their own water and almost everything is back to normal. To fix my DIY leak detector and get that GFCI back on I will have to wait for everything to dry as I have to take the outlet apart and build a new leak detector.
My Ozonizer croaked yesterday and I have it completely pulled apart on my workbench but the reaction chamber is rotted out and I am not sure if I can build another one. I have parts from two units but only one reaction chamber.
I can't wait to lay on my new Sleep Number bed tonight to see if it explodes.
that was a bit close!
