Mishaps

[Brando457]

So I'm sure we have all had mishaps while working on our tanks or trying to do something. It being a little dead on here, lets talk about our mishaps and adventures when reefing or any others.

One of mine just happened, where I went to start the siphon to drain my 14g biocube and lets just say dirty saltwater + my mouth = running to the bathroom to puke.

I'm sure there are more, but lets hear from everyone!

 

[jazzsam]

I haven't ever done that one but I think I just got a little upset to my stomach thinking about it.

 

[9supratt4]

Been there...done that!! It's nasty!!

But a mishap I had was have the bottom plastic trim on my 180 crack and having to pack everything I have into a 55 with no lights for about 2 weeks. That sucked!!

 

[magic]

I put 2 MP40ws on my 46gal. When I and started to play with the wave function my attention was drawn to something else and I splashed about 2 gallons of water over the top My wife wasn't too thrilled my experiment.

Bob

 

[mnat]

My wife is pretty prone to accidental fragging whenever her hands are in the tank. It was fun watching her taking a frag plug that was glued onto a frag shelf and when she removed it the momentum slammed the frag into the glass and split it in half (Rommells rainbow SPS and yes it is expensive). The good thing is whatever she frags she glues to the rocks so we have about 7-10 frags glued around our live rock now.

I thought I was turning my ballast off on the 12g and turned off the power strip instead so the tank had zero pumps running overnight once, luckily everything was ok. I have tasted plenty of my saltwater when beginning the drip line for acclimation and I can't count how many times one of us has spilled/kicked over some container with saltwater in it.

 

[Phyl]

Our tank had been setup for about 3 months, finished cycling. Had a bunch of fish in there and it was the holidays. I wanted to show off and feed the fish. Well... 1/2 a can of sinking pellet went to the bottom of the tank and then got swept into every nook and cranny under and within the rock. We had ammonia off the charts for 2 weeks, changing 100 of the 120g at a shot every other day (this is where we perfected the art of water movement). We finally had to take ALL of the rock out of the tank, rinse and reload to get through it. All the fish survived. That was in 2004 and we still have a few of them today.

Snail in the overflow caused a major water loss in the basement (thankfully). Noticed when we heard the splashing as the water crested the edge of the 150g tank onto the floor.

Countless times of having the RO/DI filling into a bucket before we installed a float valve.

Put some stress relief into the tank (I don't even remember why). Overnight the skimmer went HAYWIRE and poured 10+g of water onto the floor in our living room. I learned to turn off the skimmer if you medicate the tank. D'oh.

I could probably go on! LOL! 5 years is a lot of time to accumulate mishaps.

**waves** Hi Sam! Good to see you around, man!

 

[Boomer]

Phyl

That is an odd L@@King parrot fish in your avatar

 

[Phyl]

You should see him swim!!

 

[Jcurry@wesketch]

An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.


Mishaps....Where shall I start?

Starting a ref tank with the Juabert system and deciding after it's stocked with fish & coral that you want a sump. But there's not way to get the sump in the stand. So you build a sump in the stand from pieces of acrylic (easier said than done). Then realize the tank is to close to the wall to fit an overflow box on the back of the tank. So you and your buddy use a hydraulic autobody jack to slide the tank out away from the wall (@ midnight after drinking most of the evening).

The sump springs a leak a few months later flooding the living room. So you decide that this time your going to cut out the post between two of the doors on the stand to slide a new sump in. A few car jacks, some 4x4 posts and a sawzall later it's done(suprisingly everything lived).

The CPR overflow box loses siphon and the pump enmpties the sump and overflows the tank onto the living room floor not once but yes twice. The second time I was away for weekend.

Did I forget to mention that my tank was on the 2nd floor of an apartment building?

Ah yes it seems that water found it's way through the floor and came out of the electrical box on the ceiling of the b!tch of a neighbor downstairs. Which of course had a ceiling fan attached to it. The 15-20 gallons of saltwater left a lovely ring of salt creep on all four walls just before the ceiling collapased onto her water bed @ 3 am.

Needless to say my landlord... all 6' 235lbs and 16" of biceps was not pleased to get that phone call. He left such an angry message on my answering machine I nearly crapped myself listening to it.

$50 in dry cleaning bills for the neighbors stuff and weekend of sheetrocking the ceiling was a lack luster end to my first reef tank.

Next time I'll tell some stories about how I setup my next reef tank determined to avoid all the mistakes I made with the first one.

 

[Phyl]

O.Em.Gee. Jeff, I've haven't laughed this hard in so long. Thank you for that. Great story telling and I'm looking forward to the next installment!

 

[Sunny]

O.Em.Gee. Jeff, I've haven't laughed this hard in so long. Thank you for that. Great story telling and I'm looking forward to the next installment!

+1 on the story here. LMAO !!!

 

[MadReefer]

1) I have had my fill of salt water siphoning.
2) Forgetting about the RO/DI and it overflowing(at least a dozen times). Thankfully I hook it up in the yard.
3) Unplugging the wrong plug leaving no water movement or skimmer action.
4) Mixing saltwater and the pump flips up spraying water out of the 5 gallon bucket. Really should get a bigger bucket.

 

[magic]

Jeff

You win!

Bob

 

[The_Codfather]

I was doing a nitrate test once and added part 2 nitrite.. The water turned fire engine red and I repeated it with the same result.. I was bugging out for for about 2 hrs till i realized what had happened :-[

 

[twisted]

when my fuge was under my tank in the cabinet, i would slide it out about an inch or so to vac up any salt buildup behind it. i was doing my normal cleaning of it when "crack!" the front glass spiderwebbed and leaking. it was 10 pm and as my wife siliconed the cracks, that went all the way across the tank, and then surran wrapped the tank to hold it together i rushed to walmart to grab a replacement. it took about 2 hours to fix the issue but we got it. i dont know how we didnt lose more water than we did but someone was looking out for us... thank God for surran wrap!

 

[Brian]

I have a bunch, but one that sticks out in my mind is when I saw red cyano in my bosses tank at work...thought it was cool looking algae...siphoned a bunch out of the tank and put it in mine. I gave myself cyano!!

 

[Phyl]

Priceless, Brian.

 

[mnat]

Another good one, Nikkit was glueing frags into place and had the tube of IC gel underwater. I had been telling her to squeeze from the bottom because she always squeezed from the top and we would lose 25% of the tube because it would glue over the tip. She was doing it and the whole tube of IC gel ruptured in her hand under water inside the tank. Of course this was my fault so I at least enjoyed it by laughing as she spent the next 20 minutes getting glue off her hand.

 

[Tazmaniancowboy]

I have a bunch, but one that sticks out in my mind is when I saw red cyano in my bosses tank at work...thought it was cool looking algae...siphoned a bunch out of the tank and put it in mine. I gave myself cyano!!

That's funny. Need more? I've got plenty!

 

[Brian]

Oh God no! I still remember looking at it..."Ohh, it looks so nice and velvety!"