Trying to see how many things can break at once.

Paul B

Paul B

Well-Known Member
It started out as a great day. Last night we went out to dinner on the boat with friends and today I was going to start bringing stuff home from the boat and get ready for winter.
I go past my reef tank and notice that it is very quiet. I don't hear the pumps but the lights are on. The GFI is tripped for the pumps. No big deal I go to put on the GFI (or GFCI as you guys call them) and it doesn't go on. Alright, I will fix that later and I plug the pump into another outlet. One pump still doesn't work so I remove it figuring that is what tripped the GFI and I go to install another powerhead. These are Korilia's with that magnet that you put on the outside of the glass. The magnet falls behind the tank and the tank is built into a closet under a staircase. Of course the thing falls to the most in accessable part of the closet, all the way under the stairs in Never Never land. I don't want to pull everything out of the closet so I get on my hands and knees and start crawling under the tank between old 8 MM projectors and forgotten wedding slides. I see the magnet and reach for it. While I am reaching, I also find some old forgotten fish mummies that could be from the Nixon administration. I stretch for the magnet and WHOOOOSH. Niagara Falls starts pouring onto my back. Where is it coming from? I thought I broke the tank. OMG it is pouring all over me like those wierdios fall all over Lady GaGa. I am instantly soaked but I am still on my belly in this closet stuck between my wedding movies and 200 LP records from the 60s. Probably a bunch of Four Seasons, Elvis and Spiral Staircase records. Now as that is not enough, I am getting shocked. The water is pouring over my wiring and then on me. I pull myself back as fast as I could, which isn't very fast and I see the source of the water. The 3/4" valve that I have on the bottom of my home made 5' skimmer broke off clean. I must have hit it with my back as I was inch worming into the closet. I open that valve to do water changes. I stick my finger into the hole and stop the water. But the pumps are still pumping water into the skimmer, I am getting shocked as my socks are soaked and my wife is out. OMG now what am I going to do? I pull out the plugs on the pumps so no more water goes into the skimmer but there is still 5 gallons of water in the skimmer and maybe 7 gallons on me. I hear these splashing sounds as now the tank is about 3" low (I don't have a sump) I lay on the floor in the flood and with my toes I am just able to reach a bucket that I removed to get into the closet. I slide it over to the skimmer and let out the remaining water. Now, for the moment no water is leaking so I go and change my clothes and get some towels. I unplug the rest of the wires so I stopped getting shocked. Not everything in that closet is on a GFI. I want the water flowing into the skimmer because it feeds my algae trough that is filled with tiny tube worms and it took years for that to happen. I can just about hear them screaming. I look for a valve in my parts places (I can build a space shuttle with the stuff I have laying around. A small space shuttle but a space shuttle none the less.
But no valve the right size. Al I have that will fit in the hole is a barb fitting. So I remove the part of the broken valve and put in the barb fitting. Then I get a hose and put it on the barb fitting hoping that the hose is long enough to reach the top of the skimmer and I will be able to temporarilly turn on the skimmer water. The hose isn't long enough so I search around and find another hose that fits tightly into it. I put it all together and turn on the pump. Great, i could hear the sigh of relief from the tube worms and brittle stars as they took their first few breaths. Then disaster struck again. The two hoses I put together came apart. Water shooting everywhere, I grab the hose and again stick my finger in it. I have a small flashlight on the tank edge and it fits snugly into the hose. Fixed again. But now the water in the tank is about 4" down. I don't have any water mixed and the powerhead that is working is splashing water on the walls as it is almost out of the water. I pull the plug and say a Novena to Saint Peter that my wife doesn't come back home.
Then I mix some ASW and throw it in the tank. I didn't test the salinity or mix it very well but from experience I know it was close and the hermit crabs could mix it up if they want. The fish will get over it. Now all seems to be well, I run to the hardware store and buy a valve. I replace the valve and notice that half my LEDs are out.
OMG again. Now what? I have been meaning to re build that home made LED fixture but I wasn't planning to do it in the middle of Noah's flood. So I remove the 5' LED fixture and test it. Salt creep shorted 8 lights out. But I am fairly smart and I have some LEDs. I solder in new LEDs and while I am at it I re wired the thing into a plug so I can now un plug the fixture from the drivers and remove it on two pieces. It was impossable for me to rmove this fixture myself as it is very long and is connected to a box of remote drivers. Now everything seems to be working except I still can't get that GFI on. My automatic DIY leak detector that shuts off the pumps in case of a skimmer overflow is soaked from the flood and I can't dry it. I will have to build another one but it is no big deal. Just something else to do in the midst of a flood when I could be working on my boat.
Now I can't find one bananafish or the very pregnant mandarin and figure they may be those dusty fish I found under the tank but they can be replaced and i didn't soak the carpet to much as the last time this happened I installed a barrier in the closet to keep the water from traveling out of the closet. The animals don't seem to care that they had to mix their own water and almost everything is back to normal. To fix my DIY leak detector and get that GFCI back on I will have to wait for everything to dry as I have to take the outlet apart and build a new leak detector.
My Ozonizer croaked yesterday and I have it completely pulled apart on my workbench but the reaction chamber is rotted out and I am not sure if I can build another one. I have parts from two units but only one reaction chamber.
I can't wait to lay on my new Sleep Number bed tonight to see if it explodes.
:wavehand:





 
Paul B

Paul B

Well-Known Member
I dropped the magnet behind the tank and crawled under there to get it, then broke the valve.

When I was getting shocked I thought that if I died there, under my fish tank, I hoped my wife loved me enough to have my ashes scattered over a bunch of Supermodels.
 
Paul B

Paul B

Well-Known Member
Thank you, I am sure I have lost dozens of fish over the years and some of them may still be under there someplace. I do move everything out of that closet every year but there are shelves next to the tank under there where there is really no access. I sometimes find fish in my tank where I have no idea where they came from and may have come in as babies and grew up under the rocks.
 
StirCrayzy

StirCrayzy

Well-Known Member
I'd love to see this precariously low valve, and the space you were getting into. sounds like you're gonna need to brush up on your yoga positions.
 
Paul B

Paul B

Well-Known Member
I'd love to see this precariously low valve, and the space you were getting into. sounds like you're gonna need to brush up on your yoga positions.
Click to expand...

You can see it in that picture above of my skimmer. It is the brass looking valve on the bottom (It is really plastic) It snapped clean off and that space under the tank is where I was crawling.
 
Paul B

Paul B

Well-Known Member
Now you see how I broke that valve. I moved the bucket and managed to slide that green tub a little.
 
sirrealism

sirrealism

Well-Known Member
I sure hope you find that mandarin. Sure was a cool fish. Got to love getting shocked and not being able to do anything about it. At least you know your hearts in good shape
 
Paul B

Paul B

Well-Known Member
So this morning I figured I would fix the GFCI DIY leak detector while the cleaning girl is here. I "carefully" crawled partially under the tank and installed a new Home made leak detector and pump shut off. That only takes 10 minutes as it is made out of a film container and a couple of stainless steel screws. (Film is like Scotch Tape but pictures stick to it) So that is working and I had to hurry up because I had a funeral to go to upstate about an hour away. So I go to the funeral and it was a short ceremony at the gravesite, I say my good bye's and head home. It was a beautiful day so I had my windows open and Frankie Valley of the Four Seasons was entertaining me on the radio. A car passes me and I hear that he is getting a flat tire. You know that thump, thump of the tire going flat. I am thinking to myself, poor guy, lousy place to get a flat because we are just about on the Whitestone Bridge between Queens and the Bronx. The guy pulls ahead, and I still hear the thump, thump and my car starts to swerve. Oh Great. It's me. And all my tires are fairly new, like a year old. I pull off onto the swampy weeds and put on my emergency blinkers. I was a mechanic way before I was an electrician so I have changed plenty of tires. But I am always prepared for emergencies and I have a can of that flat fix stuff that I bought about 20 years ago and never used. I keep it for my wife. I screw it on to the tire and figure I will be back on the road in 5 minutes. I push the button and this sticky white gunk squirts out all over the place. Every where but in the tire. The tube on the thing is broken and very little of the gunk is going in the tire which is flat as a Supermodels belly. This foamy stuff is all over the can and the rest of it is on me. Skanky stuff. I also found out another fact today. Wasps really like flat fixer stuff. I am already covered in weeds, cars are whizzing by 6" from me at 70 miles an hour and every wasp in the Bronx smells this tire stuff and is heading for me. But when they land on it, they stick to it. I think they liked it better where it was on me than the tire, I guess I smell better. I don't want to scrape this stuff off of me with my clean hand because it is nasty stuff and the dying wasps imbedded in with their stingers facing straight up didn't make it look any more appetizing. I also didn't want them to sting my clean hand. So I get some weeds and scrape it off on them. I look in my car and find a rag. I got it and try to clean my hands of wasps which keep flying over to investigate. Now that the flat fixer didn't work, I need to find the jack.
The jack was never used, as a matter of fact I don't remember ever using the jack that comes with the car because I have a large mechanic jack in my garage and for some reason, every time I had to remove the tire, I am near my garage. So I am thinking, this jack that came with the car is never going to work. Jacks never work that come with cars. So I stick it under the car and try to jack it up. The jack works very well and is very easy to use but I am in dirt and the jack is just squishing into the ground. I tromp through the weeds looking for a board to put under the jack and I must have found a dozen discarded tires so I don't feel to bad and I am not the only one that got a flat. I find a board and stick it under the jack and raise the car. I remove the tire and have to crawl under the car to get out the spare tire that is one of those silly donuts and is mounted under the car. That tire is worn bald so the guy who had the car before me must have had a lot of flats. But I put it on the car in the midst of all the wasps eyeing me for lunch and I lower the car.
All done. I get in the car turn up the radio,and wait for a clearing to get back on the highway.
I see an opening and I gun the engine. I am in dirt so the car squeels as it tries to get back on the road. I look in the mirror to see a car coming up on me very fast. I can't get the car up to speed and it is squeeling and swirving.
Wasps hitting the window and Frankie Valley yelling "Big Girls Don't Cry".
I just about manage to get the car off the road again, just as the oncoming car veers off into the next lane. I Think I have another flat. Great, I again put the emergency flashers on and try to put on the emergency brake. But to my surprise, it is already on. That is why I couldn't get the car back on the road. I left the emergency brake on, Stupid wasps. Like Duh. So I take off the emergency brake, wave good bye to the wasps, Fankie Valley is singing "My Eyes Adore you" and I get back on the road. I take the car to a Firestone dealer because I have Firestone tires and I have the guarantee for roadside hazards. So 3 hours later I got a free tire because of the guarantee that cost me $50.00. Their definition of free is a little different than my definition. But the good news is that the Firestone Dealer is right around the corner from my favorite LFS and I went in and got a new female mandarin because the other one jumped out. She was very pregnant and my male is a wimp so she was pregnant to long and became egg bound. If I could have caught her, I would have done a cesarean as I have performed a few times before and never lost a patient, I am just not sure if Obamacare covers the procedure.
 
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