Oh No... Not Another Nano Startup Thread!

[@ombomb]

Good news:

Clown looks OK
Polyps are starting to open again

Bad news:

My floor is VERY damp.

I had something of a plumbing / electical malfunction last night. Not entirely sure of what happened in between me going to bed and me getting woken up by the guy that lives downstairs, but I think it went something like this...

Go to bed everything fine
Powercut (had a couple of insignificant ones recently)
Water starts flowing back throught the non return valve that has some debris collected in it and not closed
Water overflows into the unit that all the electicals are in and out onto the floor
Water builds up and seeps through into the flat below
Woken up and faced with a lounge full of water (3am)

My girlfriend (who was remarkably calm) and I mopped up all the water and I stayed up to try and salvage the tank. Luckily it was only half empty so the fish was OK and I was able to move the polyps down the rock and back into the water. I attempted to plugin the powerhead and gave myself an electric shock, but luckily I was very tired and it would take a LOT more than that to even wake me up fully at that time. (N.B. I'm happy to make light of this now, but have since bought a circuit breaker for the electicals and have been kicking myself all day for being such an idiot). The fused have been replaced this afternoon and now we have full power again.

I have fixed the valve for now, but will be re-plumbing the return pipe so the siphon breaks naturally rather than just blindly trusting it. Tank is nearly filled properly now although not enough to run the sump properly so I currently have a power head and the heater running in the main tank and just a heater in the sump.

To make matters worse I HAD to go into work this morning, so I was tired, pissed off, worried about the tank and not able to do anything about it until I got my work finished.

 

[SkiFletch]

Yikes, good luck on the cleanup

 

[Siamese Fighter05]

Sorry to hear about this @ombomb

It's one of the reasons i'm worried about using a sump/refuge on my next tank, i just have a dodgy feeling that something would go wrong in a powercut

I had problems with my RO unit connecting to my tap, stupidly i left it on at night hoping i'd have everything i needed in the morning. Woke up in the morning to a flooded bathroom ! Finally got most of it up and then went downstairs to see water dripping out of the kitchen light About half an hour later i heard weird noises and the celing was really hot, the ball popped and i thought the has was about to burn down

Luckily everthing's okay now and i hope you get everything fixed And working well again

Dan

 

[@ombomb]

Thanks

Got the new parts on order for the re-plumbing so hopefully it'll be finally sorted over the weekend.

 

[@ombomb]

Well I'm fairly sure I understand what happened to cause the pump to switch off now.

When finally getting the tank back up to full speed this evening I found that the pipe down into the sump was running VERY slowly, even with the valve on the pipe completely open. It turns out a Nerite snail was in the pipe and restricting the flow through the valve to a virtual trickle. Now what I think must of happened is the pump emptied it's chamber in the sump and cut out, at which point the valve failed. The electrics can ojnly have failed when I got involved in a half sleep, half panic mode. I have commandeered a tupeware container and made a protector over the overflow which stops ANYTHING getting sucked into the pipe, good for the snails and good for the clown which seems to have take quite a liking to the power head which normally lives right next to the overflow.

I'm a little bit worried about leaving the tank over night, but there's not really much more I can do until the new bits arrive.

 

[WayneVT08]

Wow looks awesome. I wanna get one once I move out. It looks really good. How much did the rock cost? Well more important, how much did it cost to get it set-up like that, with all the equipment, i.e. the rock, electrical and the sand and such.... not including the animals inside it?

 

[@ombomb]

Well costs will vary depending on where you live.

I paid around £95 for 13.5KG of rock.

I think in total the set up has cost around £500 so far with another £80 worth of CC, fish and Coral.

Still spending though, lighting upgrade coming soon.

 

[WayneVT08]

What is 95 pounds in american dollars? and what is 500 pounds? haha sorry. it looks awesome.

 

[SkiFletch]

Well, in dollars and cents, its close to $2/1 pound. So that would be $180 and $1000 respectively. However, costs on equipment and LR vary GREATLY between the US and UK so thats prolly not a good estimate of final cost of your tank.

 

[WayneVT08]

Ok cool. But damn that's expensive... I think I'll just stick to looking at ya'lls tanks on here and the ones at the LFS. Wait I just realized there's another store around here. Anyone ever heard of Petland? And there's another in the mall I think... huh.

 

[Aquascaper]

A perfect example of why I don't use, and never will, a ball valve on a marine system. They are just too unpredictable and easily clogged.

I've never had a sump overflow but I have had a 56g tank crack along the bottom from corner to corner and empty onto the living room floor, luckily I was just going to bed and heard the crack and watched as the water began to dribble off the stand. The only other disater was a 40g that got hit with a ball and exploded over the floor, luckily again it was only filled with freshwater fish so no big deal

 

[@ombomb]

Well the plumbing work is completed and the tank is refilled (having taken out half the water while I adjusted the water and glue the new pipes in place).

Now all I need to do is modify the overflow box to allow room for a durso and a slightly higher water level.

I almost wish I could start again from scratch knowing what I know now, it'd make life 10 times easier

One thing I have learnt today though is: Don't leave your glass lid on the floor and then walk around not looking where you're putting your feet,,, It's a trip to B&Q for me in the morning!

Anyone feel like giving me some advice in removing silicone?

Want to get this over flow done and dusted.

On the bright side, I rebuilt my girlfriend's dad's PC over the week and I have been promised a fish as a thank you... that'll be a six line wrasse in a couple of weeks!!!

Current Stocking Plan:

1 X Perc Clown - In tank
1 X Six Line Wrasse - Coming in 2 weeks
1 X Flame Angel - Expensive and will fill the tank, but stunning and worth it IMO

 

[SkiFletch]

As for removing silicone, pure ethanol is a good solvent and not horribly dangerous to use around your tank in small quantites. Dunno what the liquor laws and such are around the UK but if you can get your hands on 95% (190 proof) ethanol that's your best bet. You could also use very high proof vodkas (150 proof and higher). If none of those are readily available you CAN use isopropyl "rubbing" alcohol, but thats far less effective than ethanol.

 

[Siamese Fighter05]

I almost wish I could start again from scratch knowing what I know now, it'd make life 10 times easier
Current Stocking Plan:

Amen to that!

Stocking looks good, some people would disagree with the Flame but you've cut a fish off the list to give him extra space so all is good

 

[@ombomb]

None of those methods of removing the silicone sound great with fish / water still in the tank. May need to rethink this.

I know the flame angel is right on the borders of nano safe fish, but I think the tank would look rather crowded with 4/5 fish in there anyway. The plan is to buy the angel small and keep a close watch on it and the water conditions and make sure everything remains stable.

N.B. The angel is a LONG way off, probably a birthday present... in August