Chris McMahon
Thu Nov 11, 2004, 03:59 PM
For those who remember, I haven't had the best luck with fish. There was the fry spray incident, followed by the split tank seem to name just a few.
Today I'd have to rate pretty bad too. To quote a saying: "pride comes before a fall", I had just posted about my new Red Melons and Golden Pigeon, as well as my other recent discus and how happy I was with them. I'd commented to friends that I thought I'd finally got over my bad luck with aquariums.
Now to set the scene:
At around 12pm Thursday most of the central Gold Coast had a power failure. They were saying it was a major failure effecting most of the Gold Coast and couldn't even give an estimate of when power would return until 2pm.
So having most of my tanks running off canisters, I thought that by then all my good bacteria would be dead and I'd end up poisoning my fish with Ammonia or Nitrite.
So I raced down to my LFS and bought 3 battery power air pumps ($15ea from them, $10ea from my normal supplier & a 2 hour round trip - so I get he local ones) + batteries from the "local" shop (read 3x supermarket price). So ~$60 and 10 minutes later I get home and pull all 5 canister filters and take the tops off them (I've been told this will supply enough oxygen to stop the bacteria going bad). Just as I finished this, the power comes on, around 1pm or so.
So since opening the filters normally displaces the seals (so I can't just reseal them and put them back) I spend the next 2 hours cleaning and repacking all 5 filters, putting each one into action as it becomes ready, washing them in tank water, which also requires I refill the tanks, so I end up going a 30% wc in effect also.
The fish seem to have taken every thing well and are acting normally. Normally enough that I don't both posting about it, rather put it down to bad timing and one of those things.
So apart from 3 hours lost work and $60 I didn't need to spend, no biggy.
Fast forward to 8:27pm. I'm reading forums on the computer in my home office / tank room. I'm just about to go watch "The Amazing Race" at 8:30pm. Then BANG! The 4' planted discus tank in the corner has a waterfall coming out of the middle of it. It's front panel is cracked from the very top to the very bottom right down the middle. Water is racing out of it in a stream. What would you do?
To add to the excitement, the stream of water isn't just landing on the carpet of the room, oh no I'm not that lucky, it got a perfect trajectory onto the power board for my main and breeding tanks - and everything is still running. Think about what you'd do now. Only 10 seconds or so have passed from the first crack and already 30% of 200L is "missing" from the tank.
Here's some things to consider. You've got water gushing onto a power board at an amazing rate, you've got a $2k computer on the floor next to your desk which is on the opposite side of your desk from the broken tank. You've got your best discus in the broken tank (say >$1500 replacement cost) as well as $150 of Rainbows and $60 breeding pair of Bristlenose, and the tank is fairly heavily planted with vine-like wood giving 100% change of the fish avoiding a net.
Having fun yet?
Here's what I did:
The water had finally tripped the safety switch on the power-board. My main 5x2x2 tank and my 120l breeding tank now had no lights, air or filters. I turned off the other switches for my other tanks in the room and computer and grabbed as may towels as I could from the linen room. Putting the towels against the 18" crack (press against the crack with my body) slowed the gush to about the same as a garden hose on full. Grabbing the only bucket in reach, I grabbed the closest net (too small but the large one wasn't insight at the time) and scooped out 6 adult discus into the bucket.
I then left the leak to it's own devices (it had slowed somewhat as 50% of 200L was now about my ankles) and transfered half of the bucket to one breeding tank, half to the other. I now had 5 discus in each 120L tank.
I then returned to the broken tank and got the remaining 2 adult discus and put one each into each breeder. I now had 6 adult discus in each 120L breeding tank. By all accounts, overstocking 200%.
By this time, the broken tank had maybe 25% left in it. Therefore 150L was on my floor.
I grabbed another bucket and pulled all the plants and removed the driftwood so that I had a hope of catching the Rainbows and bristlenoses. I'd say the plants were worth around $150-$200 to replace (since I didn't have room in my other tanks, they got binned). I'd had Anubius growing on the wood. I'd had stem plants coloured up to great red/orange shades and recently added 8 pots of hair grass.
If you've seem my 5x2x2 planted pics, I'd say the 4' was a better looking planted tank. It was that good, being planed from the beginning, and with the experience of my other tanks.
By now I'd emptied the closet and I was knee deep in waterlogged towels, maybe 30 towels. The tank had maybe 10% left, ~180 litres on the floor. I scooped up the 20 odd rainbows and bristlenose pair and put them into the bucket the discus were in a few minutes before.
Now I had a minute to think. As I saw it, my main problem was no power. I unplugged everything from the main tanks power board and lifted it up. Water streamed out of the power board. Not good. The light timer was making sloshing noises and the double adaptors were dripping wet.
It was probably 30 minutes since the power went out and I was getting concerned about the canister filters again. I needed to get the power back on. Using every towel in the house, clean or dirty, I managed to get the area under the main tank (which housed the main tank's two canister filters, a 120L breeding tank, the breeding tank's canister filter, two air pumps, and the power boards for all the above) relatively dry. It also seemed that the main house breaker had tripped along the way too as all power in the house (except lights) was off.
Checking now on the Rainbows I noticed that 6 had jumped from the bucket onto the floor. 4 were too far gone, 2 were still twitching. I returned the 2 to the bucket, with a glass cover and hoped for the best.
Half an hour later (60+minutes after no power) I got a power board from another room and got the the main and breeding tank back up and running. The floor was still awash with water, but the shelf the power board was on, was off the floor.
I put the remaining Rainbows (the 2 made it) and bns into my main tank.
I then spent the rest of the evening using towels and blankets to try and mop up what water remains. The carpet (yeah I know - carpet & tanks don't mix) as I write this is still very damp. I expect the usual fowl smell to take over the room for weeks as it drys.
I've just finished scooping out the sand and substrate out and binning it (say $50 replacement). I dragged the stand and tank out to the yard and got the tank off the stand. The stand was very damp and I'm sure it would have warped if I left it over night.
The computer got a shallow bath. It blew it's USB and firewire ports (mounted at bottom of tower case) and is giving a constant verbal warning (very annoyingly) "CPU failed system test" which seems erroneous as I'm typing this now.
So that's my tale of woe.
My main concerns now are;
1) What, if any, damage did the earlier power failure do to my filters?
2) What, if any, damage did the 2nd power failure caused by the wet power board do to my filters?
3) Will the 2 breeding tanks handle the sudden increase in bioload?
4) How I'm going to replace the broken tank, if at all?
5) Why I've offended the fish gods that they feel it necessary to kick the s h i t out of me on a regular basis?
BTW for those of you who believe bad luck comes in 3s - Wednesday a Cory in my main tank decides to make a splash on the surface that has the perfect trajectory to hit the MH light cover (10" above and on an angle) - shattering it in an instant.
Oh and the broken 4' tank is the same tank that split it's seem on me the other month - yes, I had the seem redone and all four corners reinforced with external braces, by a professional tank maker. Looking at the tank I can see that the centre brace isn't connected to the rear wall and the tank split right at the point when the brace joins the front pane. I'll be having a few choice words with the guy who did the job on the tank. He better have good answers.
:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:
Today I'd have to rate pretty bad too. To quote a saying: "pride comes before a fall", I had just posted about my new Red Melons and Golden Pigeon, as well as my other recent discus and how happy I was with them. I'd commented to friends that I thought I'd finally got over my bad luck with aquariums.
Now to set the scene:
At around 12pm Thursday most of the central Gold Coast had a power failure. They were saying it was a major failure effecting most of the Gold Coast and couldn't even give an estimate of when power would return until 2pm.
So having most of my tanks running off canisters, I thought that by then all my good bacteria would be dead and I'd end up poisoning my fish with Ammonia or Nitrite.
So I raced down to my LFS and bought 3 battery power air pumps ($15ea from them, $10ea from my normal supplier & a 2 hour round trip - so I get he local ones) + batteries from the "local" shop (read 3x supermarket price). So ~$60 and 10 minutes later I get home and pull all 5 canister filters and take the tops off them (I've been told this will supply enough oxygen to stop the bacteria going bad). Just as I finished this, the power comes on, around 1pm or so.
So since opening the filters normally displaces the seals (so I can't just reseal them and put them back) I spend the next 2 hours cleaning and repacking all 5 filters, putting each one into action as it becomes ready, washing them in tank water, which also requires I refill the tanks, so I end up going a 30% wc in effect also.
The fish seem to have taken every thing well and are acting normally. Normally enough that I don't both posting about it, rather put it down to bad timing and one of those things.
So apart from 3 hours lost work and $60 I didn't need to spend, no biggy.
Fast forward to 8:27pm. I'm reading forums on the computer in my home office / tank room. I'm just about to go watch "The Amazing Race" at 8:30pm. Then BANG! The 4' planted discus tank in the corner has a waterfall coming out of the middle of it. It's front panel is cracked from the very top to the very bottom right down the middle. Water is racing out of it in a stream. What would you do?
To add to the excitement, the stream of water isn't just landing on the carpet of the room, oh no I'm not that lucky, it got a perfect trajectory onto the power board for my main and breeding tanks - and everything is still running. Think about what you'd do now. Only 10 seconds or so have passed from the first crack and already 30% of 200L is "missing" from the tank.
Here's some things to consider. You've got water gushing onto a power board at an amazing rate, you've got a $2k computer on the floor next to your desk which is on the opposite side of your desk from the broken tank. You've got your best discus in the broken tank (say >$1500 replacement cost) as well as $150 of Rainbows and $60 breeding pair of Bristlenose, and the tank is fairly heavily planted with vine-like wood giving 100% change of the fish avoiding a net.
Having fun yet?
Here's what I did:
The water had finally tripped the safety switch on the power-board. My main 5x2x2 tank and my 120l breeding tank now had no lights, air or filters. I turned off the other switches for my other tanks in the room and computer and grabbed as may towels as I could from the linen room. Putting the towels against the 18" crack (press against the crack with my body) slowed the gush to about the same as a garden hose on full. Grabbing the only bucket in reach, I grabbed the closest net (too small but the large one wasn't insight at the time) and scooped out 6 adult discus into the bucket.
I then left the leak to it's own devices (it had slowed somewhat as 50% of 200L was now about my ankles) and transfered half of the bucket to one breeding tank, half to the other. I now had 5 discus in each 120L tank.
I then returned to the broken tank and got the remaining 2 adult discus and put one each into each breeder. I now had 6 adult discus in each 120L breeding tank. By all accounts, overstocking 200%.
By this time, the broken tank had maybe 25% left in it. Therefore 150L was on my floor.
I grabbed another bucket and pulled all the plants and removed the driftwood so that I had a hope of catching the Rainbows and bristlenoses. I'd say the plants were worth around $150-$200 to replace (since I didn't have room in my other tanks, they got binned). I'd had Anubius growing on the wood. I'd had stem plants coloured up to great red/orange shades and recently added 8 pots of hair grass.
If you've seem my 5x2x2 planted pics, I'd say the 4' was a better looking planted tank. It was that good, being planed from the beginning, and with the experience of my other tanks.
By now I'd emptied the closet and I was knee deep in waterlogged towels, maybe 30 towels. The tank had maybe 10% left, ~180 litres on the floor. I scooped up the 20 odd rainbows and bristlenose pair and put them into the bucket the discus were in a few minutes before.
Now I had a minute to think. As I saw it, my main problem was no power. I unplugged everything from the main tanks power board and lifted it up. Water streamed out of the power board. Not good. The light timer was making sloshing noises and the double adaptors were dripping wet.
It was probably 30 minutes since the power went out and I was getting concerned about the canister filters again. I needed to get the power back on. Using every towel in the house, clean or dirty, I managed to get the area under the main tank (which housed the main tank's two canister filters, a 120L breeding tank, the breeding tank's canister filter, two air pumps, and the power boards for all the above) relatively dry. It also seemed that the main house breaker had tripped along the way too as all power in the house (except lights) was off.
Checking now on the Rainbows I noticed that 6 had jumped from the bucket onto the floor. 4 were too far gone, 2 were still twitching. I returned the 2 to the bucket, with a glass cover and hoped for the best.
Half an hour later (60+minutes after no power) I got a power board from another room and got the the main and breeding tank back up and running. The floor was still awash with water, but the shelf the power board was on, was off the floor.
I put the remaining Rainbows (the 2 made it) and bns into my main tank.
I then spent the rest of the evening using towels and blankets to try and mop up what water remains. The carpet (yeah I know - carpet & tanks don't mix) as I write this is still very damp. I expect the usual fowl smell to take over the room for weeks as it drys.
I've just finished scooping out the sand and substrate out and binning it (say $50 replacement). I dragged the stand and tank out to the yard and got the tank off the stand. The stand was very damp and I'm sure it would have warped if I left it over night.
The computer got a shallow bath. It blew it's USB and firewire ports (mounted at bottom of tower case) and is giving a constant verbal warning (very annoyingly) "CPU failed system test" which seems erroneous as I'm typing this now.
So that's my tale of woe.
My main concerns now are;
1) What, if any, damage did the earlier power failure do to my filters?
2) What, if any, damage did the 2nd power failure caused by the wet power board do to my filters?
3) Will the 2 breeding tanks handle the sudden increase in bioload?
4) How I'm going to replace the broken tank, if at all?
5) Why I've offended the fish gods that they feel it necessary to kick the s h i t out of me on a regular basis?
BTW for those of you who believe bad luck comes in 3s - Wednesday a Cory in my main tank decides to make a splash on the surface that has the perfect trajectory to hit the MH light cover (10" above and on an angle) - shattering it in an instant.
Oh and the broken 4' tank is the same tank that split it's seem on me the other month - yes, I had the seem redone and all four corners reinforced with external braces, by a professional tank maker. Looking at the tank I can see that the centre brace isn't connected to the rear wall and the tank split right at the point when the brace joins the front pane. I'll be having a few choice words with the guy who did the job on the tank. He better have good answers.
:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: