My Near Disaster

I still can't believe this happened! Last night, I happened to be in my office on the computer - the tank lights were already off. I heard a click and heard the gurgling sound like when I cut the power for water changes and the water is draining into the sump. I realized the click was the GFI tripping and there was water on the carpet. I yelled for Jwin, who found the culprit - a snail in the U-tube partially blocking the flow. So, I grabbed towels while he pulled out the U-tube and got the snail out. When we got everything started back, I probably lost a half gallon of water on the carpet gauging from my top off line.

Worst case - If I hadn't been sitting here, didn't have a GFI, and this had gone on all night, the tank would have continued to overflow from the water in the sump (if the snail stayed in there blocking the tube), by the time the sump was emptied, 11 gallons of water would have been on my carpet, and my return pump would have probably burned out. Water was still flowing into the sump, but the snail had blocked the tube enough where the return pump was running more water into the tank than was running into the sump, so the tank was overflowing.

I've kept banded trochus snails in my overflow for months. They do a great job of keeping it clean. The one thing I didn't plan for was SNAIL GROWTH! I've seen them cruise through the U-tube before with no blockage and no harm done. This guy had gotten BIG - I hadn't even noticed it, the thing had been in there so long.

So, the moral of the story? Don't keep snails in the overflow? I still like the idea and really like how they kept it relatively clean. I guess I'll have to do a snail rotation if I'm going to do something like this again. Right now, the two snails are back in the tank. I think I'll keep them out of the overflow for a while for my peace of mind. I'm also glad I had a GFI.

 

wow, so glad a major disaster was averted. that would have been horrible if it had continued.

 

Wow - good thing you noticed that so quickly! K+ for the near disaster and quick fix

 

Wow! Thank god for that GFI and the fact that you were nearby.

 

im glad to hear this didnt turn out worse..

 

I'm glad it was just a snail Basicly I followed the wet spots up to the tank trying to find what was leaking, and the wet spots had come from the top of the tank? Well, the only thing that would have caused that was a blocked overflow. Grabbed a flashlight, saw a snail, end of story. At least the GFI's and drip loops work flawlessly

 

Another thing I thought of - if this had happened during the night and the GFI tripped, shutting off the return pump and 2 power heads, that could have been a bad thing too, even though the flooding would have stopped. Fortunately, our second strip, which is away from the first one and also has a GFI didn't trip. It's the strip with the heater and 2 other powerheads, so at least the tank would have had heat and some circulation.

 

Alright, I suggest you submit GFI into the acronym database. I'm totally lost. What is a GFI?

 

More commonly called a GFCI.

Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter

 

Thanks, sounds like that'll be on my list.