Wet/Dry Flood!

[5x5]

As all horror stories begin -

I came home yesterday from work and immediately noticed two things as I entered the house.

1. A weird squealing/pumping sound
2. The absence of the bubbling sounds the fish tank makes

Upon first glance I could see my normally highly-filled wet/dry sump had only a few inches of water and was below the pump (which accounted for the squealing sound of the pump). I was so confused that I couldn't even think. I unplugged the pump and hoped it wasn't damaged.

I immediately got a 5 gal bucket of water, added prime and then dumped it in the display tank. This brought the sump level back to normal. My first thought was "Where did 5 gals of water go since yesterday?

I turned the pump back on and noticed swirting all over the place in the stand cabinet area and I realized all my supplies in there were soaked. It looked bad but still only accounted for about 1/2 Gal of water at the most. I assumed I had a leak at one of the hose/plumbing joints, so I plugged in the pump one more time to get a look at where the problem was coming from. The next thing I noticed was that the 3/4 rubber hose running from my pump to the return value was squirting in about 4 spots. It looked almost like razor nicks / holes.

Suffice it to say, I duct taped it for temporary relief, went to home depot to get new and hopefully a much better quality hose and got it all fixed up. (The original hose came from the fish store "used from the back" because they didn't have any in stock and I had drove 50 miles due to their inventory error.)

Oh about the other 4 1/2 gallons of water. Its in the carpet in front of my fish tank. It sank into the padding, went through the floor and dripped into the sump pump in my basement. Needless to say, I spent hours toweling the floor and bought fans and dehumidifiers that have been running since. Let's hope for no mold.

Lesson Learned? I don't know, but I hope this never happens again. Maybe don't keep your sumps filled to high, because its just more water to flood if there is an accident. Maybe thats why the "water level" indicator is at the bottom of the sump.

 

[HUKIT]

That sucks, plus I know what your going through since one of my Fluval 405's leaked last week and I lost 12-15 gallons into the carpet( replaced them with 2 FX5's and the three 405's are on Craiglist). But with regards to the leak on yours you'll want to give some thought to hard piping the returns and drain tubes with PVC instead to prevent things like this again.

 

[5x5]

That's a good idea. I never even considered using PVC instead of the plastic hoses. I'd probably need to do some elbow joints since I doubt the intake/outake would like up perfectly with the wet dry system.

Did the Fluval unit actually break and leak or was it at the connector?

 

[HUKIT]

The stupid Aquastop o-ring and it leaked when the power went out, I'm absolutely done with anything other than the FX5's. I'm sick up buying replacement o-rings and impeller covers for these miserable things, the FX5 is virtually leak proof unlike the rest of the Fluval line up(I was a big supporter of them for years but I'm DONE!).

 

[e_murray]

Those tiny holes sound like what happened to me... the kitties thought it would be fun to chew on the hose..