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ReeferKimberly
09/05/2012, 12:25 AM
I'm sure we all have our stories! Mine came when on the same day I flooded the sump of a massive tank at work and came home to find my 60 gallon spilt in half, horizontally 3 inches from the bottom, due to an improper stand. It caused a small electrical fire and we had to have the carpet lifted and industrial dryers working for several days to avoid all the mold and stuff. It was horrible. Now the store I worked at no longer has carpet either :o I also have had a sea apple I was coerced into buying nuke my tank years ago (my fault for not researching and of course the lfs just wants to make money)

Not huge, but just today I managed to drop my LEDs into my tank :/ and stall the garbage disposal with sand (dumb dumb dumb, this is like the millionth time I have stalled it, when will I EVER LEARN to not use that sink for anyhing aquarium related? I will never know) Oh and I dripped water into the cable box, killed it right quick! Don't tell comcast because I am planning on playing dumb.

What are some of your biggest disasters?

pieater
09/05/2012, 12:27 AM
Introducing Xenia into my tank!

ReeferKimberly
09/05/2012, 12:31 AM
Introducing Xenia into my tank!

He said after I bought some pulsing xenia yesterday :/

Oh well, I really always wanted it. Love the pulsing so much.

usmc121581
09/05/2012, 05:41 AM
I love my xenia, but mine happened a few weeks ago after adding a auto top off. I also bought a new needle wheel impellar for my ASM G4 and left the riser tube in place forget that the skimmer was going to work better. I then wnet to sleep that night and woke up to my son telling me his closet was flooded. The skimmer overflowed and the Auto top off worked as it was suppose to.

Lostinthedark
09/05/2012, 05:49 AM
"What has been your biggest aquarium related disaster?"

My bank account.

bnumair
09/05/2012, 07:18 AM
i was messing around with a uv filter and it seemed to be leaking water into the bulb so i pulled the safety black cover of of it to make sure it was not leaking into the glass bowl over the bulb and dipped it into the water and took it out messed around for maybe 20-30 min watching with a naked eye.
long story short i burned my eyes i was legally blind for 2 weeks and another 2 weeks for healing with no bright lights dark black glasses and God knows what long term effects as even today after 5 yrs i still can stand bright lights and wind eyes start to water.

Noobtosalty
09/05/2012, 07:46 AM
Not as bad as this one^^^ But this was in my 150 gallon fresh water oscar tank.. The power went out and i had a canister filter under neath the stand and somehow the seal broke on the power canister top draining over half of the tank on to my floor...... Luckily its just a concrete floor with linoleum on top of it.. But My kitchen,living room, dining room was a pond

rogersb
09/05/2012, 08:50 AM
Just this week I had a snail get into my overflow and block enough flow that my sump was going empty and my display was filling up. The sump would have ran dry before any real damage occured, but I have a 10g ATO that kept filling the sump. My wife was the only one home and had worked 3rd shift so she woke up to my 75g spilling over the top and flooding the living room. I am setting up a 220 and have to say things now like - 'that was a freak accident, it'll never happen again.'

aandfsoccr04
09/05/2012, 08:56 AM
The tank sitter who happened to be my mom did me "a favor" by turning off my air conditioning in the middle of summer since I was going to be out of town for about 9 days and the tank got up over 90 for who knows how many days. I lost my most prized fish, which happened to be the most expensive, and about half of my corals.

VegasMike
09/05/2012, 09:42 AM
Messing around with aquascaping, including moving rocks with Palythoa on them. Was not thinking and wiped the corner of my eye, instant pain, blood red eye for a week, systemic poisoning, metallic taste in my mouth...

Everything cleared up in a week though. Worst part, my Conspic evidently did not like the aquascaping changes and decided to jump out of the 450 gallon tank, high enough to get stuck on top of the cross brace, right in the middle. All he had to do is make one flip right or left and move 2" to fall back in, but no, one dried up Conspic.

Reeferz412
09/05/2012, 10:27 AM
My canister filter decided to break the seal where the pipes go, I walked into my room after dinner and my socks soaked up water. I look down, and theres water all over the floor and I see water gushing out of my cabinet. 20 towels later and a lot of mopping, I managed to get it under control. Luckily it was my freshwater tank and not my saltwater, that would have been a HUGE mess. I have tile so it was no big deal. I think what takes the cake is the Gulfstream Park incident though.

ReeferKimberly
09/05/2012, 10:38 AM
Messing around with aquascaping, including moving rocks with Palythoa on them. Was not thinking and wiped the corner of my eye, instant pain, blood red eye for a week, systemic poisoning, metallic taste in my mouth...

Everything cleared up in a week though. Worst part, my Conspic evidently did not like the aquascaping changes and decided to jump out of the 450 gallon tank, high enough to get stuck on top of the cross brace, right in the middle. All he had to do is make one flip right or left and move 2" to fall back in, but no, one dried up Conspic.

Oh man! Sounds familiar. Not saltwater but I had the same happen to a clown loach I had for 8 years. Thing was HUGE and I loved him. It's so frustrating when if they just moved enough they would have just fallen right back in!

Last night I was working breaking down/building up a tank and a paly squirted me above my glove right over a cut. It itched a bunch, along with my whole arm for the whole night. I called my mom and she actually came over to watch me! She is a BN (like an RN but higher) at the local hospital and she said she had never heard of the poisoning. I saw this medical tag someone had and I think I will get one now. It didn't go past iching thank God. No metallic tank or nausea or I would have went to the ER quick.

Bnumair wow! That's rough! I have done the same, staring into lights to gauge what's wrong with them.....now everytime I will think of you and not do it for too long! That's crazy!

Thanks everyone so far for your stories! Sounds like I am not alone with the flooding. I'm sure everyone here has their flood stories! I love reef-keeping, except for the water :rolleyes:

I want this ->

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f20/labman48076/IMG_4706.jpg

rrasco
09/05/2012, 10:56 AM
I've overflowed plenty of tanks for a variety of reason. Reverse siphons. Forgot to turn water off on WC (FW). Before I had a float switch I flooded my fish room daily with RODI.

My worst disaster was when my 6 week old 210 split diagonally across the front pane and hydrated my living room. Thankfully only half of it emptied by the time I got home, I couldn't imagine being able to clean up much more water...I already used all my towels and my neighbors.

I thought I was in for it a few weeks ago when I went to frag some palys off a rock I didn't want to move to the new tank. I had my chisel and hammer in my hands, rock on the table and I thought to myself...I should put glasses on, then I was like, nah, it will only be one quick swing. First swing, particles flew straight into my eye. I thought I was going to get poisoned, but things worked out. I washed my eye out for about 20 minutes after that. After I put the palys back in the tank of course.

ReachTheSky
09/05/2012, 11:05 AM
Introducing a Flame Angel in my reef tank.

A lot of people will tell you that theirs leaves corals alone. Well, this one didn't. I got him before corals. Any frags I put in my tank died within a couple of weeks. I never thought it'd be him because I never saw him nip or get near them. I would agonize over water quality because frag after frag after frag would go kaput. I nearly gave up. This went on for 8 or so months. :(

Turns out he was a super sneak that would act all innocent when were around and go in for a quick bite or two when we weren't. He was finally caught in the act by my mother, who was napping on the couch. She opened her eyes and peered into the tank, and there he was, ripping my Acropora's polyps to shreds. It took nearly two months to coerce this genius of a fish to go inside the trap.

jasonrstewart79
09/05/2012, 11:13 AM
I spilled about 10,000gal of SW from a holding tank at the Oklahoma Aquarium. And then had to clean it up.

sslak
09/05/2012, 11:13 AM
Thermostat malfunction on a 14g nano. Increased my heater temp until the thermostat read correctly.

Realized the water was hot to the touch and smashed the coralife digital thermometer against the wall. Luckily I only melted some corals.

I now run a ReefKeeper 2. Won't be having that problem again.

SushiGirl
09/05/2012, 11:41 AM
In 2002 I went to Scotland for 6 weeks. Before I left I set everything up on power surge strips -- except my lights because the timers wouldn't fit. 2 weeks in, my pet sitting friends called me to tell me everything was dead, apparently fried by the lights during a severe thunderstorm plus everything shutting off so no skimmer or powerheads to clean the tank. They felt horrible. They took everything out & changed the water & turned everthing back on. Some hitchhikers survived, but that was it.

2 years later I went out of town for a long weekend & my mom watched the tank. My grape caulerpa went sexual & the powerhead suction cups let go so there was no surface agitation & the Prizm skimmer couldn't do much, so I came home to a green tank & everything dead again. I never did set that tank back up.

KafudaFish
09/05/2012, 11:57 AM
Winning that goldfish at the 6th grade Halloween Carnival.

Everything else just relates back to that.

coralsnaked
09/05/2012, 02:04 PM
I consider any reef I dive my aquarium and I let a friend of mine dive with me that was a fresh water diver. Dove without gloves and I didn't catch it on the check. Thought the man was going to die cause he touched Milleporina (Fire Coral). Two and a half hours to a hospital watching him cry till he passed out, only to wake a few minutes later and repeat...... He still has a small green spot on the palm of his hand where he grasped it. Have to take the credit for that one as he was my responsibility.

Reef264
09/05/2012, 02:33 PM
Most painful, or most disastrous?I'll tell both tales...

Most painful is when I was trying to catch a fish, and rammed the back of my hand into my long spine urchin, hard enough for one the spines to go through my hand completely the other spines broke off and some are still in there, hand twitches now, never did before.

Most disastrous is when I came home from a 5 day vacation to find 30 gallons of water on the floor, caused by a return line blowing apart, don't know why.Back siphoned 30 gallons of water onto the floor, heater burned up, most everything died, V-Tail grouper was the only thing that was living, he pulled through to make a full recovery, then killed himself,
By getting into a fight with the lion fish, he lost....


-Ray

Paris_Wiley
09/05/2012, 02:38 PM
I had a 450 gallon acrylic aquarium split on a vertical seam, spilling about 400 gallons or so of salt water on the floor. Of all the things the builder did wrong with the house he managed to get the concrete floor perfectly level so I had about a 1/2" of water in every room.

Allmost
09/05/2012, 02:41 PM
not mine, but this guy wanted to show me that its possible to pull a tank across the room.

I told him no way, the stand or the tank would come apart ....

he said no way, I do it daily to clean behind it ! wanna see ?

he then proceeded to pull on his stand on his 65 G, for about 2 mins, then the front panel came off, and the tank cracked at the bottom ...

so then he learned not to do that again LOL


:headwally::headwalls:

rrasco
09/05/2012, 03:26 PM
not mine, but this guy wanted to show me that its possible to pull a tank across the room.

I told him no way, the stand or the tank would come apart ....

he said no way, I do it daily to clean behind it ! wanna see ?

he then proceeded to pull on his stand on his 65 G, for about 2 mins, then the front panel came off, and the tank cracked at the bottom ...

so then he learned not to do that again LOL


:headwally::headwalls:

Darwin applies, even when reefing.

Allmost
09/05/2012, 03:31 PM
at least, now he trusts me when I say dont do something lol

lclark209
09/05/2012, 03:53 PM
When I first started sw, a fellow reefer gave me a rock covered in button polyps. Eventually I grew to hate them so pulled the rock out and let it sit in the sun a couple days. Put some gloves on and brought it back in the house to scrub it. Well a few hours go by...I can't breathe, my chest hurts, I'm puking, 104 temperature...to the er I go. That sucked.
Recently, on the eve of its tear down to be replaced with my new 180g, my 120 cracked all the way across the bottom panel.

Fryman
09/05/2012, 04:54 PM
My first tank I bought second-hand, and (unbeknownst to me) the overflow was just press-fit onto a short section of pvc pipe actually welded to the bottom. Over time, the overflow worked loose and one night it popped off, leaving just the short section of PVC open to the inside of the tank. The tank emptied into the sump, which wasn't nearly big enough...the rest spilled onto my living room floor.

The wife was oh so pleased.

david pinder
09/05/2012, 05:23 PM
Bought a used 400 wt m halide, first week caught fire burned up my 1200 gal and 600 gal reefs plus fire damage. Fortunately had good insurance, but that doesnt cover livestock.

morgan175
09/05/2012, 06:26 PM
The day I said I wanted to start a salt water tank.

Noobtosalty
09/06/2012, 06:31 AM
Lets keeps this going.. Makes me feel better knowing that theses happen to everyone and not just this unlucky guy

Crush Coral
09/06/2012, 06:52 AM
HA. Bought a frag with it attached and my quality of observation has gone in the tank, so to say.

icex2010
09/06/2012, 08:15 AM
So far the only thing I've had happen is my Rena XP3 filter start leaking. Ordered a new seal and hopefully that fixs the issue. It's leaking out of the power cord hole of all places. Heard the power bar sizzling from the water soaking into it.

insomniac2k2
09/06/2012, 08:51 AM
My daughter winning this same evil carnival goldfish lead me to where I am today in this hobby.

I'm beginning to believe that a yact would be cheaper to maintain....


Winning that goldfish at the 6th grade Halloween Carnival.

Everything else just relates back to that.

sslak
09/06/2012, 11:45 AM
I spilled about 10,000gal of SW from a holding tank at the Oklahoma Aquarium. And then had to clean it up.

Woah..I thought 10 gallons on the floor was bad.

I salute you sir. When you make a mess, you go big!

Noobtosalty
09/06/2012, 04:04 PM
10,000 gallons how the heck do you pick that up?

heckeng
09/06/2012, 08:19 PM
My biggest disaster was a long term event--switching from my halides to LEDs. I SO wanted the LEDs to work--AI Sols actually. Their programming is amazing, they are silent, and the colors are phenomenal. That being said, some of my 40 or so zoa colonies liked them, and some of them just withered and died. It was impossible to keep them all happy like my halides could do. It took me 6-8 months before I could stand back and look at what was really happening to my system and admit to myself that I f'd up. Got the halides back on now and am just starting to get things to come back.

I'm glad I haven't had some of your guy's issues though! Going blind and grabbing fire corals doesn't sound like fun!

stlcard
09/06/2012, 09:52 PM
"What has been your biggest aquarium related disaster?"

My bank account.

bahaha. ditto.

alten78
09/07/2012, 07:11 AM
+1 on the bank account :)

Bought a monti cap and thought "ohhhh extra stuff, look at that pretty little fern looking thing growing on the plug, i hope it grows"