What was Your Worst "Leak?" - Page 3

Jason McKenzie · 05-04-2005, 08:41 AM

bustaslick · 01-03-2006, 07:33 PM

OK I guess I should throw in my horror story since it just happened two days ago. So while I'm at work I work on a 1800 gal freshwater tank as well as other work related things... My friend and I were working and the acrylic tank seams cracked and proceeded to dump gallons and gallons and gallons of water in our bar. Im guessing we had about 700 gallons or maybe more leak out onto the floor and ourselves. After quickly running around trying to stop the leak we managed to stop the leak with about 1 foot of water left in the tank, mind you that the height of the whole tank is about 5 feet tall and about 15 feet or so in length. This was the worse sight I have seen in a tank leak. The clean-up itself was a mess... This is the first worst leak that have seen, hopefully the last.

Bruce · 01-03-2006, 07:49 PM

Well, this is not a leak that happened to me, but a friend of mine, he was moving his 300 gal reef...for some reason he didnt really take much water out nor rock...so when he went to pick it up (with about 10 other people lol) the whole tank shattered and cut his hand up really bad...he said it messed up some of his nerves or somthing...poor guy...nice tank 2

rickzter · 01-03-2006, 08:55 PM

You know, it's funny this thread has come up. I had a leak about 2 weeks ago.

My overflow was making a very annoying gurggle gurggle gurggle noise and it was passing a lot of water to my filter, no spill but it was heck of annoying. It turns out it was a tube I had fitted to accept a detritus filter; it was too high. I shorten the tube so it would be able to waterfall down much more smoothly. When I was changing it (as I pulled it), I had my hand on the fitting of the overflow (where the water is passed down to the hose into the filter) and I had to turn the piece of pipe to unstick it and as I did, I accidentally loosend the fitting and a bunch of water started spilling, I easily spilled about 2-3 gallons there. Then I found out I had a bad o-ring on the fitting. So there I am, rushing from LFS to LFS looking for a freakin' o-ring, filter was down, etc. I was pretty pissed. Oh, did I mention I almost got electrocuted by unplugging precious hardware (it was instinct). Water spilled all over a power strip and started to see smoke, luckily, nothing was fried just the power strip.

Oh yea, 2-3 gallons might not be a lot, but I have ceramic tile, so the water spread like wild fire on the floor.

Blade_Runner · 01-04-2006, 11:45 AM

Where to start...

Too many old glass tanks to count as a kid.

1st significant was a 55 that cracked just sitting on the stand in 82. Of course, I was in Detroit racing when I got the panic call from my wife. I had a little over a 48 hour lay over to patch things up. Oh, were were living on the 3rd floor at the time.

2nd big event was December 04. I had a 130 in my office that let go. It dropped about 40-50 gallons overnight. Good thing I'm on a concrete slab. What a mess! Fortunately, it was a FO show tank and I didn't loose any fish.

3rd moderate event was sometime last summer. The skimmer in my office tank went nutzo and overflowed the 1.25 gal holding tank. It dropped 3-5 gallons on the floor.

The last one was about 2 weeks ago. The 3/4" feed hose from a new Metric skimmer on the 210 popped off overnight. It pumped 10 or so gallons out before the level in the sump dropped below the pickup. I've now glued on a 3/4" PVC fitting so that doesn't happen again.

My poor office floow has taken a beating. Good thing I keep an old carpet cleaner in the back.

APC · 01-04-2006, 12:29 PM

I used to work at a fish store when I was in High School. Under the fish store was an indoor miniature golf course. I was filling the water treatment tanks up in preperation for a store wide water change....things got busy...I was called to the front of the store....a couple of hours later we got a call from downstairs...the 16th, 17th, and 18th holes were being "rained' on. Woops. Been lucky with my own tanks though...knock on wood.

JeridJohnson · 01-12-2006, 10:42 PM

A long time ago when I had my first marine tank I was pumping water from a small trash can up into the tank during a water change.. Well, for some reason my hands were wet and the tank was reaching full so I reached down to unplug the pump (no power strip back then) and I got the $hit $hocked out of me.. probably hit me for 2-3 seconds. During my electrocution I pulled the fill hose out of the tank and sprayed it all over.. My arm ached for two weeks after that..

fletch · 01-13-2006, 07:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Craig Manoukian

Lost power a few weeks ago and my antisiphon was clogged with salt on my return fron the sump. 5 gallons of water on the upsairs floor! Note to self to clean the antisiphon hole regularly as part od tank maintenance!

Same as Craig only 40 gallons on the floor :mad:

chetrod · 01-13-2006, 08:23 PM

I had two pretty bad ones "one time in band camp" I turned on the R/O Unit all equipment is in the closet in the master bedroom. There was a cord on the floor that I had the UV light connected to. Forgot to turn it of before class, Class is four hours long, and my wife calls and says to me I smell smoke. I had her turn the R/O off and kill the breaker as I'm doing 90mph up I75 to get here. So much for the UV light.
The Other I had a 35 gallon trash can I used for water changes filled it up mixed my salt with intentions on doing the water change that saturday morning. Unfortunately when I got home Friday half the can was empty there was a pin hole on the bottom of the can so like beamer get the wet vac.
Leasons learned all electrical must be secured away from all water. I had my neighbor run a direct line to the Breaker box and connected everuthing to a GFI breaker. Its so good to know electricians.