Amateur mistake costs me dearly....

[inedukated]

Here's my story:

 

I am remodeling my basement to get ready to sell my house. My electricity throughout the house must've been wired by a parkinson's patient with hooves for hands, so at about 8pm I decide to redo it all. My electrical panel is pretty poorly labeled (mistake 1), with comments that just say "Lights and plugs" but give no indication as to where in the house these mysterious lights and plugs are. So, I begin to flip a few of them until the power is out in the basement. I then walk upstairs to glance at the tank. I do this deliberately. I see that the lights are on, and fish are fat and swimming. I am happy. Since I am already in the living room, I go into the kitchen and poor a pitcher of beer. This is required for electrical work. I then proceed into the basement and start ripping and gutting away, adding outlets, rewiring ceiling fans, removing old switches, etc etc.... I leave the basement at 1am and see the lights off on the tank, but do not gaze at the night creatures (mistake 2). My hard work in the basement calls for another drink.

 

 

 

I wake up around 10am (I love being a student). I shower and eventually make it into the living room at 11am. I am greeted with tragedy. I see my yallow tang on the bottom of the tank and 3 cleaner shrimp dead, one being devoured by hermit crabs. All other fish are breathing heavily, my blue pocillapora is half out of the water... I freak out. I run in circles. I try to blame my roommates. I see the problem immediately: My return pump from the sump into the tank died when I flipped the breaker on the tank.

I was using a piece of crap ebayed pump (mistake 3) because I "couldn't afford" a nice eheim pump or other dependable model. Since it stopped returning water to the tank, there was no movement, because I use my returns instead of powerheads in the tank (perhaps mistake 4).

 

In summary, 14 hours of non-movement within my main tank resulted in the death of my lifestock. I gave the proper 2 flush solute to the deceased, and poured another pitcher.

 

What I have learned from this (hopefully):

Mark your electrical panel so you know exactly what powers your tank

Buy more reliable pumps, which don't crap out on you when you have drops or surges in power

Place a small 200gph pump within the tank just incase this happens again, to keep some movement

 

Sorry for the long message, I hope others can possible learn from my stupid mistakes...

 

-Ben

[TROLL]

Owchie!!!!! That must sucks big time! I'm surprised to see how rapidly your livestock declined over 14 hours. That shouldn't be happening till about 24 hours, you'll start seeing that signs. Hope you'll recover soon and up running again.

 

Have an certified electrican come in to doble check your electrical system and make sure whole thing is wired right. That's truly a lesson for us all to learn.

 

As for 200 gph pump, I always have a maxijet 1200 handy in case those thing happens.

[Grav]

Sorry to hear about this Ben, but you are keeping a good attitude. I run 2 Mag 12s on my 180 instead of a mag 24. I figgure in the worst case, I only lose half my flow.

 

Another good idea is the auto-on D battery air pump. This things kick on and can run for a few days anytime the power goes out (you are out of town, asleep... whatever)

[Jager]

actually something you can do is get a battery backup UPS for a computer. not because they will just run your tank for a bit, but mine have the loudest beeping alarm when the battery is low. its impossible to sleep through and it requires either power to be restored, or the unit shut off to stop the noise. that has saved me a few times when power stopped in the night.

 

sorry that you lost alot of stock, hopefully the fargs at the meeting can help get you restarted.

[HowardofNOVA]

Ben,

Sorry to hear about this, LMK when your back up, I'll have a coral or two to help you get started again soon?

Howard

[inedukated]

actually something you can do is get a battery backup UPS for a computer.

 

Great suggestion. I think i can get my hands on one of these from my old job.

 

Ben,

Sorry to hear about this, LMK when your back up, I'll have a coral or two to help you get started again soon?

Howard

 

 

Howard! I am actually getting ready to do a tank migration (in 8 hours, depending on when I wake up) to my 75gall that I had waiting. Since I took your idea for the overflows into the sump, can you bring some of that gutter screen with you to the meeting? I need to get ahold of some. Hopefully within a few weeks the remaining lifestock will be back to normal, and I'll come pickup/drop off some frags from you!

[dhoch]

Ben,

 

Sucks... and we have all been there through something that sucks.

 

Just as a idea redundancy on separate circuits is a really good thing

 

As is battery backup...

 

Dae

[Sugar Magnolia]

Sorry to hear about your loss. Good luck with the move to the 75!

[ErikS]

sorry to hear about the loses.

Edited January 19, 2007 by ErikS

[jason the filter freak]

Sorry about your loss, thanks for the lesson... have another

[NRehman]

Sorry for the loss and thanks for sharing. I was going to get a generator, but now I think I will get a UPS first to buy time when not there.

 

I'll start a new thread for UPS hookup recommendations if I don't find it on the search...