What's te most water you have spilled & what caused it?

[MatteZ]

I enjoyed the topic of how d you change your water so I thought I would try again.

We have all spilled water at some point or another and it is always fun to share war stories.



the most I have spilled so far(knock on wood) is about 7-10 gallons I would say. I forgot to shut off the RO machine and went out later got a text from my wife very upset that she came home to a layer of water covering the floor.

 

[saltkreep88]

The most I have spilled is enough to have my 25 sft bathroom about an inch deep. This happened twice after forgetting to turn the RODI off. I now use a float switch because the wife was not happy. haha

 

[dan_k]

I would say 20 gallons maybe a little less I went to bed and left my rodi on all night not a good way to start a morning

 

[Dave]

Not a war story but may be helpful. I would have spilled more water than you did for the same reason...forgetting to turn off RO/DI. However I put my RO/DI container next to my sump and installed an outlet with tubing at the top of container feeding into the sump. So if I forget to turn off RO/DI...All I have is the extra waste of water and RO/DI membranes/filters. Saved me more than once

 

[ahvrivera]

Well.... combining all the times I have spilled water im going to say about 60gal. Most likely more. Ro float valve cured the sorry honey I forgot syndrome.

 

[Paul B]

About 8 gallons. I used to have an urchin collecting business and I had a lot of urchins and they would not fit in the refrigerated tank so I put 24 of them in my reef. They must of really liked my reef because all 24 of them spawned at the same time and made my tank look like whipped cream. My skimmer has a 5 gallon tank connected to it for the waste, but it overflowed all over the carpet. Didn't smell like lotus blossums either.

 

[Cdiggy]

About 8 gallons. I used to have an urchin collecting business and I had a lot of urchins and they would not fit in the refrigerated tank so I put 24 of them in my reef. They must of really liked my reef because all 24 of them spawned at the same time and made my tank look like whipped cream. My skimmer has a 5 gallon tank connected to it for the waste, but it overflowed all over the carpet. Didn't smell like lotus blossums either.

Agh the smell of lotus in the morning.... Smells like..... Victory!

 

[jimroth]

Unknown because the river of RO water flowed out the front of my garage! One time I knocked a 50G trash can full of water change water over in the den. It killed the Wii and all the remotes to the Xbox. The carpet was somewhat cleaner after I sucked it all up with the shop-vac but a little stiff and salty!

 

[MatteZ]

I wasted about 25 gallons of saltwater. I came home from work and found my sons toys floating in the bottom of the bucket.

 

[lefkonj]

about 10 gallons. Skimmer went nuts, overflowed and drained a recently filled Top-Off tank. Not a fun thing to wake up to in the morning.

 

[MadReefer]

5 gallons of top off water. Hose slipped out of sump and pump turned on dumping water all over the rug.

 

[Cdiggy]

Oh maybe only 10 gallons. Trying to be smart and using RO waste water to refill my Cichlid tank after a water change.

 

[Arce]

Alot, mostly RODI left on that flooded my basement.

 

[Daniel]

About fifty gallons. Had a snail got stuck in my over flow tube. So my sump and top off water filled my main system till it overflowed on my floor. What a pain in the a$$ at 5:30am.

 

[jose7878]

About 200+ gal my ro canister cracked and continued to dump water in my basement.

 

[Mike S]

About fifty gallons. Had a snail got stuck in my over flow tube. So my sump and top off water filled my main system till it overflowed on my floor. What a pain in the a$$ at 5:30am.

My skimmer had been randomly overflowing this past week. Thankfully I have a float switch that shuts it off when the skimmate container is filled. I finally pulled it yesterday and discovered a tiny snail blocking one of the intake tubes in the air silencer. Its amazing where they can themselves into.

 

[Daniel]

So very true.

 

[TanksNStuff]

Hmm, well, I have a few instances where water spilled.

1. My skimmate collection container (that the skimmer cup drains into) is under my stand, but outside of the sump. My skimmer went nuts a couple times and proceeded to overflow the collection container (a lil less than 5 gallons). It emptied out my sump + whatever RO water that could be pumped in during that time. Carpet was soaked and it took many towels, a wet-vac, and a few fans to dry it out. Luckily I was home when it happened so cleanup was right afterwards so not much damage.

I solved this issue with an Avast Marine pressure switch. I put the sensor in my collection container and plugged my skimmer into the controlled outlet. Now, if the skimmer goes nuts and fills that up, it shuts off my skimmer.

2. Doing a water change once, I had used a small clamp to hold the end of the pump discharge tubing in a 5g bucket. Well, apparently I didn't clip it in good enough because it slipped off when I went out to the garage to grab a couple saltwater buckets to be put back in for the WC. The wife had to let me know that I was spraying water all over the floor. Man, it was only like a minute of being away and that happened?

From that point on, I never start a WC until all my new SW is there and ready first. Then, I keep an eye on the tubing as I pump out dirty water.

3. As a couple others posted, I too have forgotten to turn off the RODI. A few times in fact! The worst one though was when I started it early in the afternoon and then went out shopping with the wife. Came home after eating out for dinner and see the river flowing down the driveway. I got the evil eye and knew this one was going to be bad. Not only did I waste countless gallons of water, but I also wet a bunch of boxes that my brother-in-law was storing in our garage. Not a pretty sight.

There was another time when I ran to Lowes for "one thing" and an hour and a half later I saw water coming out from under the garage door. :embarrassed:

I resolved this issue by acquiring a couple Brute containers that had float switches installed in them. I plan to buy an auto shutoff valve for it too because although the floats will stop the bulk of the flow when they are closed... I still get a trickle coming out of the waste line some times. But I have been very careful not to leave it running when I'm not at home anymore.

 

[Brizjuan]

Other than my (3) 15 gallon RO spills from forgetting to shut it off I had an epic spill 4 years ago. I had a 120 gallon mixed reef that was my absolute pride and joy. So one day at work I get a call from my wife saying the tank was leaking. So I asked her to open the cabinets to check thinking it was the skimmer going nuts. It turned out that the tank had cracked on the bottom pane from end to end. By the time I got home almost 100 gallons had leaked onto the 2 month old hardwood floor. My wife and mother had about 20 towels spread out all over the living room and the surge protectors were shorting out. I spent the next 5 hours throwing buckets of water and live rock out the living room window and frantically trying to sell every peice of livestock I had for a quarter of the price they were worth... The following day, in a depression I spent hours removing an reinstall the hardwood floor that was destroyed... Needless to say this was one of the worst days of my life... So for me... The numbers 100 gallons in one day.

 

[JRWOHLER]

Forgetting to turn off the RO/DI maybe 10 G who knows it is in the crawl space, worse was when I was refilling the tank after a water change and the fresh salt water was pumped onto the family room floor because the hose had gotten pulled out of place probably only 5 gallons but bigger mess by far.