Snails and overflow boxes don't mix

[jgoal55]

Ok, so last night I was cleaning my tank and while I was doing so I threw a mexican turbo snail in my overflow box to clean up some of the algae in there.

When I was done, I turned everything back on and went to bed.....I forgot about the turbo snail.

Sure enough, when I woke up in the morning my floor was covered in water and my auto top off reservoir was empty. The snail had climbed into the siphon tube and had restricted the flow of water from the display tank into the sump. Obviously, the return pump didn't slow down and as the sump emptied the auto top off kicked on.

I am not sure how long this little cycle went on but by the time I saw it the snail had already made it all the way through the siphon tube. My salinity was at 1.020. I am thinking that about ten gallons of fresh water went into the tank.

Good news is it was a nice water change and everything survived so far; even my starfish.

Bad news is now I'm super worried about a snail climbing into the siphon tube. Even though I am the one who put it in there and I'll never do that again, is it possible for them to climb in there on their own? There is about an inch of overflow box out of the water.

I wonder if there is some sort of mesh that I can put on the bottom of the siphon tube just to be safe?????

Sorry for the long post and thanks for the help.

 

[FutureInterest]

I've seen people cover the overflow with gutterguard. In the alternative, you can put a strainer on the tube.

 

[ihaveadane]

Glad you shared... I was considering doing the same thing. I guess I will need to reconsider.

 

[glxtrix]

jorge you can get plastic mesh from michaels thats used for tapestry work(thats not the real term but its all I can think of). Its when you thread yarn thu that mesh stuff to make lil pictures....anyways, you can get an 8"x8" piece of this stuff in pretty much any color you want for like $.43 I might actually have some that you can have. You could cover the top of your over flow with it or cover the tube, either way works for I've done both in the past. As far as will the snails go in there on their own, generally they wont seeing how you have 1" of plastic out of the water, but sometimes there is always that one advernterous guy who might want to do the impossible. Better to be safe than sorry is what I say. I'ld suggest tho making a tube type one that fits over the bottom part of the syphon, that way if a snail does get into that box or you want to clean it again, you dont have to worry bout removing that top guard and that way the snail wont get into that tube. If ya want I'll find some of that stuff and come over to help you with it on the weekend.

 

[jgoal55]

thanks guys......

and thanks Lee.....of course you could help me with the fish tank.....lol....

actually though, this one sounds somewhat simple and I can probably pull this one of my own if you have better things to do. But if you feel like kickin' a few beers back on Sunday you can come by since Jonathan and I are taking down the 135 in the morning. At about 12pm I'll be heading to Petland Alpharetta and I know you've been wanting to head over there for a while.....

let me know.

 

[jetchris]

what i did was cut a square of egg crate and then attatched it with zip ties. I put it right on the siphon tube

 

[jgoal55]

Thats not a bad idea either and I actually have some egg crate lying around.....

Whatever option I take I am just not looking forward to having to suck water back through that algae covered tube....lol....

Actually, here is another question.....anyone know why my overflow box and tube gets more algae than anywhere else in the tank?

 

[glxtrix]

its plastic and close to your lights. Yeah I'll be at your place for sure in sun cuz I know jon was talking to me about being therer for that, not to mention I'll pick up those two loaches from ya. Oh and for sure I want to goto petland! It'll be fun... I'll look around I might actually have that cyclendar mesh deal I made from my last overflow on the 15g. If not like I said, its super easy to make takes all of 5 minutes.

 

[jeep9783]

i had that happen but luckly my sump was running a little low that day and all it really caused was me to loose syphon on my u tube and the headache of prying out a snail from the u-tube, no water mess though