Very ingenious!! Too bad you dismantled it.
I've done two major stupid things, and many more little bits of stupidity. For years I used a solid block carbon filter for my water. As long as ACWD used chlorine as its disinfectant, everything was fine if I aerated the water for 24 hrs. Well, they switched to chloramine and Theresa warned me ,but I didn't listen. Did a big water change and lost a beautiful large clam. The inside just melted away. Very sad. Tough way to learn a lesson.
The other mistake was mentioned by Mr Ugly , I think. While doing a water change, I put both ends of the siphon in my 40 ga tank, went into the bathroom to deal with the new water, came back out and the tank was half empty(one end came out of the tank), water flowing out the front door, soaked carpet, corals exposed to the air. Totally panicked. What the hell to do. Ending up losing two of three fish and some corals, but most corals made it. Shows how tough some corals are.