A very damp Christmas

[Mrbill]

So we came bounding down the stairs Christmas morning, all excited to see what Santa brought, when I took a glance at the tank...holy s**t! The water is like 4 inches below where it was when we went to bed!

I did a water change and cleaned the filter the day before, and it seems that the Fluval leaked about 5 gallons of water onto the carpeted floor, leaking through to the basement. I'm still not sure how it happened. I guess something wasn't connected quite right, it was a slow leak.

So I spent the morning sucking about two gallons out of the carpet with a carpet extraction machine. The rest either went into the basement or is still in the carpet.

And, to top it all off (pun intended) I had a bucket in the bathroom filling up with replacement RO water which I forgot about, and it overflowed. Luckily my wife had to use the facilities, and noticed it before it got too deep. It was mopped up easily.

So it was a very damp Christmas. And the carpet is still damp... I really hope it doesn't start to stink.

 

[lando]

Sorry to hear about that. I dumped about five gal. of water on my floor during a dump cleaning mishap. I sucked it up with a carpet cleaner and it has not smelled at all. Hopefully you will be okay.

 

[cmor1701d]

I think we've all had that type of mishap at least once. Sorry yours had to be on Christmas morning.

I forgot about my bucket being filled with RO and went to bed. It ran all night long and flooded the kitchen and the basement below it... Took some time to clean that one up.

 

[ellisz]

On my last mishap, I cut the carpet around my tank and lifted the carpet up so I could get a blower under the carpet to dry it out. Mildew is not a good thing.

I do my RO water in a room that has a floor drain. Saved me quite a few times

 

[jaiden]

I do my ro in a 5g bucket which fits inside my set tub, so if it overflowed, it would go down the drain

 

[Mrbill]

The more I think about it, the more I think I'm going to have to move the tank and replace the carpet. Unfortunately my dog has used the room as a bathroom in the past, and it may just be too far gone to just dry out. Between moving that and an 8 foot homemade bar/buffet, I've got my work cut out for me.

Any tips on temporarily moving a tank to another room?

 

[dralarms]

Any tips on temporarily moving a tank to another room?

Drain it, place all rock & sand in a bucket with tank water, place all fish in a bucket with tank water. The only "safe" way to move a tank is completely empty. That being said I have moved both a 29 and a 46 bow front with rock, sand and a little water left in it.

 

[BillyZ]

deffinetly completely empty the tank.

We have an article here geared towards moving a FW tank, but many of the same principles apply to SW as well.

 

[Mrbill]

Thanks folks, I think we're going carpet shopping on Friday. The tank is a 46 gallon bowfront on a stand. I'll probably drain the water into a (new) garbage can, take out the rocks and put them in the can, leave the sand in the tank, and just slide it into the other room. Then put the water/rock/fish back in. Then do the opposite after the new carpet is in...can't wait.

Why do we do this again?

 

[BillyZ]

'cause it looks cool


Good luck, hope everything works out! I'd really love to get some new carpet, but I would also have to move my 55SW and a 20FW...

 

[SeriousDude5]

Happened to me once filled my sump up to high power went off 10 gallons on the floor uh-oh! 8O