hi all, read my saga part 1&2

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douggiestyle

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Oct 20, 2003
Messages
354
Location
PA
sorry ive been gone so long, work has been annoying.

an interesting thing occurred to my tank about six months back. i thought i would share it with everyone.

i came home one evening and my sump was sucking air. not enough water. as i had installed a float switch connected to a solenoid valve for a auto top off, i was a bit concerned. it turned out that the float switch was stuck in the off position (to much calcium deposit). it was a new installation (1-2 months old). so i cleaned off the calcium, loaded the kids in the car and went to an octoberfest. i came home about 6 hours later and saw that the tank water was pure white almost completely opaque (visibility was less than an inch). you can only imagine my horror. the carpet was completely soaked.

so many factors were involved. i had recently put in a new ro/di (apx 1 week prior), i found that i had not seated the membrane properly so instead of having a flow of 35gal per day my flow was around 35gal per hour. when i ordered the new ro/di i also ordered some new kent lime for my kalkreactor which is connected after the solenoid valve for a lime water auto top off (it truly is sweet). so i had completely loaded my reactor with 450g of kent's lime. the float switch became prematurely covered with calcium due to the also recent switch to iron oxide hydroxide based phosphate sponge (i found out that the iron oxide hydroxide causes calcium to precipitate, randy holmes-farley, http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-11/rhf/index.htm). when i cleaned the switch to get it to come on, i didnt check that it shut off. errors all around. errors that when added up equal one major disaster.

gotta go, i will continue this topic with part 2 in a few days.

doug
 
d00d. I feel your pain..I have had 2 outbreaks of water on the carpet disease. Once was so st00pid, I don't even really wanna say..But it helps to have a good shop vac in this hobby..Sorry it s00ks now, but I hope it has a happy ending.
 
I've had 40 gallons in the floor myself but I cant imagine seeing my tank that way, lets hear the rest.
 
part 2

so anyways....

gone for 6 hours 35 gal per hour of fresh water mixed with 450g of lime being dumped into my tank. the water was white. it truely was white wash (white wash is composed of water, lime and salt). visibility was about 1in.

my salinity was about 1.009 or lower considering the amount of lime in the water. i am not guessing the ph or alk, as i did not measure them.

amazingly almost nothing perished. a yellow tang, a six line wrasse, a couple of crabs thats it. not a coral. not a shrimp. not an anemone. nothing else. i was sad yet amazed. i moved everything to a twenty gal tank for about a month. man was it crouded. changed all the water out of the main tank and let it cycle for a month. even decided to move it. then put everything back still not a casualty

so take your corals and other reef species are so sensitive and your ultra acclimating guides and all that and stick em up your a**... i mean nose. this stuff is hardy. if this were a human he would be dead. after all most of the stuff in our tanks has outlasted all the dinosaur ages. survived global disaters you name it.

anyways i would make this suggestion. always have enough salt on hand to replace all the water in your tank. also try and have enough containers to hold all the water in the tank. cheap garbage cans are great they nest and for about 20 bucks you could store about 200 hundred gallons. also the ability to store your livstock for a month.

gotta go take care

doug
 
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