Words You Never Want To Hear At 7:30am...

[arvlyn]

What a way to wake up! 2 1/2 gallons of water looks like a LOT when it's all over your living room floor!

Thankfully it was the 5 gal. temporary baby goldfish tank, not the 29 or 37 gal.!

It took me a while to wake up enough to figure out that the tank is all one piece and plastic, there are no seams to leak. It must have been something to do with the filter, a Whisper 10 in tank filter. I think the filter media must have clogged up and caused the water in it to backup and then overflow the tank. The filter media didn't look clogged, of course, I was doing all this before I could even focus this morning too.

The floor is now very clean and drying, the rugs are hanging out on the porch to dry, all the towels I used are in the washer. The babies are in an even more temporary home until later tonight when I get off work, a 3 or 4 gal. bowl with the filter and what water wasn't on the floor already.

 

[Naughtygirlrlw]

Oy vay! What a way to wake up!

 

[Musho3210]

to make you feel better, at least it wasnt 180 gallons of saltwater on carpet, ive heard many stories of breaking 180 gallons saltwater tanks for some reason.....

 

[dane261]

i gave me mate a tank he seen that it was water tight on the night he heard a series of cracks them 70 gal of water on his kitchen floor luckly he was only cycling the tank


cheers dane

 

[Dorkhedeos]

to make you feel better, at least it wasnt 180 gallons of saltwater on carpet, ive heard many stories of breaking 180 gallons saltwater tanks for some reason.....

Thatll be awful, itll drop the value of your house like instatly

 

[fry_lover]

2.5 gallons on the floor is nothing really, i wouldnt break sweat on that

perhaps an inconvience for sure!

 

[arvlyn]

2.5 gallons on the floor is nothing really, i wouldnt break sweat on thatperhaps an inconvience for sure!

Well, considering I work from my home and the water was 1/2" away from my work computer and various boxes of contracts, etc., I was very concerned. Just lucky it was an early day for my daughter at college or neither one of us would have found it before real damage was done.

to make you feel better, at least it wasnt 180 gallons of saltwater on carpet, ive heard many stories of breaking 180 gallons saltwater tanks for some reason.....

I won't share this with my husband, he's been looking at huge tanks for me and the last one this part Wednesday was a 180!!This did convince him I was right in not putting carpet in this room though!

 

[Musho3210]

theres nothing wrong with them, its just a coincedence that i read stuff about 180 gallons breaking.... no idea why......

 

[littlest]

theres nothing wrong with them, its just a coincedence that i read stuff about 180 gallons breaking.... no idea why......

Maybe it's something to do with the dimensions of 180 gallons. Makes a lot of difference to structural strenght. Compressive and tensile forces and all that.

although just as likely it's coincidence.

Leaking tanks really scare me. The thing that worries me is that there are plugs very close to my tanks (as there needs to be for filters, heaters etc) and I'm terrified one will spring a link and gush water all over the plug sockets and cause some horrible electrial problem .

 

[jakeroberts]

now that's probaly not the best waking up you have got

 

[new2fishes]

Leaking tanks really scare me. The thing that worries me is that there are plugs very close to my tanks (as there needs to be for filters, heaters etc) and I'm terrified one will spring a link and gush water all over the plug sockets and cause some horrible electrial problem.

Why not put a GFCI plug over there? They are required in bathrooms and kitchens because of water risks. It would be fairly easy to do one for your fish tanks. You only need one per circuit (i.e. if one breaker controls the whole fish room, you would only need one GFCI for the whole room, no matter how many outlets your fish use, but if is is 2 breakers for that room, you might want to put in two).

BTW a GFCI plug is one of those with the little buttons on them (usually one red and one black) one says "test" the other "reset." I don't know how exactly they work but they are to keep people from electrocuting themself when they drop a hairdryer into a sink full of water.

Just a suggestion,

Christi, who is married to an electrician

 

[Straydum]

i had half of my 29g on the floor once. wasnt a nice thing

 

[Dorkhedeos]

theres nothing wrong with them, its just a coincedence that i read stuff about 180 gallons breaking.... no idea why......

Im not really sure about this, but i think its because of the water pressure against the glass. If you tap a goldfish bowl full of water with a good amount of force, it probably wont break because theres not much force pushing against the glass. If you have a huge 180 gallon though, the water pressure is a lot more than a puny fish bowl.