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- Aug 29, 2007
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- #1
Almost having your house burn down.
I went to visit family down south this past tuesday and drove back tonight. When I got home, something wasn't right. My tank was about 2" low with water, my ATO 5g jug reservoir was imploded (like vacuum sucked), and my vortech wasn't running. I checked under my cabinet and a sudden fright washed through me. My vortech controller and batter backup were chared. Cords were burned up with no insulation on sections.
With an amazing calmness (still probably hasn't hit me yet), I traced the problem to my ATO. When I left, I turned off the house heater (why waste energy). My tank would be getting extra cold, so I added an additional heater. Somehow in that process, I must have disturbed my ATO line (which adds to my tank directly since I don't have a sump). When my ATO kicked in, it dumped out of my tank, down the cabinet, along the inner wall (and outer), down the back of the vortech battery, and to the DC plugs. Everything fried and some how didn't catch the cabinet on fire.
Since I was using an aqualifter, the flow was slow, so it's damage creeped. The tanks are on a laminate wood floor, so I spent the past couple of hours breaking down my tanks and migrating my corals. It is a good thing I have a bunch of buckets, tanks, powerheads, and heaters. I'm not sure how much damage was done to the livestock, but the LPS generally looked ok. The SPS looked "pinked up" so I think I may have a mass bleaching coming up. We'll see. I have coral in a bunch of tanks right now...tick tock.
I'm not sure what I am going to do right now, but the place is a disaster (equipment wise). Not sure how much floor damage there is yet. For a brief moment, I was upset at how much $ I lost in equipment and possible coral, but that quickly went away when I came to grasps with how much worse it could have been. I'm tired but don't think I'll get any sleep now. More to come tomorrow.
I went to visit family down south this past tuesday and drove back tonight. When I got home, something wasn't right. My tank was about 2" low with water, my ATO 5g jug reservoir was imploded (like vacuum sucked), and my vortech wasn't running. I checked under my cabinet and a sudden fright washed through me. My vortech controller and batter backup were chared. Cords were burned up with no insulation on sections.
With an amazing calmness (still probably hasn't hit me yet), I traced the problem to my ATO. When I left, I turned off the house heater (why waste energy). My tank would be getting extra cold, so I added an additional heater. Somehow in that process, I must have disturbed my ATO line (which adds to my tank directly since I don't have a sump). When my ATO kicked in, it dumped out of my tank, down the cabinet, along the inner wall (and outer), down the back of the vortech battery, and to the DC plugs. Everything fried and some how didn't catch the cabinet on fire.
Since I was using an aqualifter, the flow was slow, so it's damage creeped. The tanks are on a laminate wood floor, so I spent the past couple of hours breaking down my tanks and migrating my corals. It is a good thing I have a bunch of buckets, tanks, powerheads, and heaters. I'm not sure how much damage was done to the livestock, but the LPS generally looked ok. The SPS looked "pinked up" so I think I may have a mass bleaching coming up. We'll see. I have coral in a bunch of tanks right now...tick tock.
I'm not sure what I am going to do right now, but the place is a disaster (equipment wise). Not sure how much floor damage there is yet. For a brief moment, I was upset at how much $ I lost in equipment and possible coral, but that quickly went away when I came to grasps with how much worse it could have been. I'm tired but don't think I'll get any sleep now. More to come tomorrow.
.. Sorry to hear that Tony.. 
). Right now, I am checking to see how easy it will be to replace the damaged section of flooring. It should be pretty easy and only ~$100 if it is what I think it is (just need to remove a section to take into home depot/lowes to see if it is it.
