Whew....avoided disaster, kinda

[gnashty]

I just got home, tank is at 84.5 degrees...*scratches head*

I turned off my sump fan yesterday because i had to clean up a mess.
well, I never plugged it back in and luckily my RKE shut down the lights otherwise it would be at least 90 in there now. Im not out of the woods yet but everything looks fine (in the dark).

 

[crewdawg1981]

Nice save... at 84.5 I'd think you'd be fine. Last time my tank got that high I lost my Blue Spot, but everything else did fine.

You did better than my disaster... because I didnt avoid it. I was messing around with the plumbing in my sump room on Saturday night and had to adjust the hot water feed from the small valve under the sink to the faucet. Put everything back together and tested it. Let it sit for a few hours, came back and looked... no drips and everything was dry.

Round about ooo... 8:30am I hear the sound of water running in the house (I'm asleepish, but its that sound when someone in another room is taking a shower and you can hear water running through the pipes). "Thats odd... the sprinklers arent running... she's asleep.... OH CRAP!"

Ran downstairs and sure enough... 1 inch of water in the basement. Freakin mega awesome... Good thing that the night before I installed ball valves to the feeds, so I was able to kill the flood immediately. Grabbed a broom, threw open the basement door and started sweeping water out.

I dont think I stopped for 20 minutes but I got most of it out... had to call Remco to extract the rest. Have a 3 dehumidifiers and 10 air movers running as we speak...

So... yeah. My weekend sucked THAT bad.

 

[gnashty]

Man...:yuk:

The reason I turned off the fan was because I had fed the tank with the pumps off and when i started it back up the sump ran dry in the return section and started pulling from my ato - i was wondering why and then stepped in water at the foot of the stairs...

water was all over but i couldnt tell why - the whole undercabinet was wet and i didnt know why...looked and looked and saw nowhere it could have came from, the sump didnt overflow either. I went out to the garage and noticed water had come thru the baseboard into the closet that sits between the tank and garage and out the garage baseboard and puddle in the middle of the garage...NO SOURCE OF A LEAK? im still scratching my head, there are no pipes at all on that wall. There is no drips or cracks anywhere near the sump - and the closet floor is dry :confused2:

Only thing I could think of is the ato back siphoned (has done it once before) and filled up the ato until it overflowed, then it ran to the basebard and under the floor in the closet (all on a slab) and thru the baseboard in the garage...Im stumped, this is far fetched but is the best explanation i could come up with

 

[gnashty]

Amici;576272 wrote: Yeah I agree, you will be fine! just dont freak out and try to lower it quickly, I would just leave the lights off and slowly lower it for the rest of the evening.

Thats all im planning on doing - I did open the canopy top and may open the stand doors for circulation - its dropping by about .2 every hour or so

 

[gnashty]

Amici;576284 wrote: Yeah and a fan circulating in the canopy to keep fresh air going wouldnt hurt.

Just FYI....If anyone has a higher temp spike then you should still lower it slowly but also add an air pump to increase the O2 in the water. As the temperature of the water increases the dissolved O2 goes down. I also read somewhere that for every 10 degree increase in temp it roughly doubles the rate of chemical reactions in the aquatic environment. Keeping your O2 up during high tank temps can mean the difference between dead fish and corals and stressed fish and corals.

Thanks! Good to know....knowledge is power

 

[musicalocean]

Glad you caught it in time

 

[oz]

One way check valve for ATO is a must.

 

[gnashty]

Oz;576299 wrote: One way check valve for ATO is a must.

Good call. Gonna install this weekend

 

[weaglereefer]

I would even say hook up a solenoid. You can get a 12v solenoid with push fittings for like $15 on eBay, then a 12v converter, and put it on the same channel as the top off pump. Power to the pump cuts off, and the solenoid closes. Could still throw a check valve in, too.

 

[gnashty]

weaglereefer;576369 wrote: I would even say hook up a solenoid. You can get a 12v solenoid with push fittings for like $15 on eBay, then a 12v converter, and put it on the same channel as the top off pump. Power to the pump cuts off, and the solenoid closes. Could still throw a check valve in, too.

Sounds like a complicated way to fix the problem.....Im out of PC4 space

check valve it is!!

 

[crewdawg1981]

You could always throw a powerstrip into that PC4 spot and hook up the ATO and solenoid to it.

 

[gnashty]

Thanks for the advice fellas - right now a strategically placed zip tie will cure the problem and its free so im gonna go that route until I decide to change my ATO set up

 

[bobz]

i had the same problem and used the zip tie fix! I had to make sure that gravity did not reverse the flow so the supply line is above my water line in the sump

 

[gnashty]

bobz;576450 wrote: i had the same problem and used the zip tie fix! I had to make sure that gravity did not reverse the flow so the supply line is above my water line in the sump

yeah, my ato tube fell into the sump accidently...i fixed it

 

[weaglereefer]

I thought you fixed it with that dosing line bracket?

 

[gnashty]

weaglereefer;576463 wrote: I thought you fixed it with that dosing line bracket?

nah, that was for my dosing tubes - my ato line is too large...i dont use an aqualifter for ATO

 

[pamelahaley]

The only thing I ever lost at 80 was xenia... that's not much to miss.