Tropical Fish Central

Here’s a post to learn from…

Yesterday was my day for weekly aquarium maintenance.  I had drained one of my 55G tanks down about half way and noticed that my Rena XP 2 filter was barely trickling out.  I keep the filter in a decorative box next to the tank, so I unplugged the filter, disconnect the input/output hoses, and take the filter to my sink.  In the process of disconnecting the hoses, I had to wrestle with it a bit, because of the angle that the hoses come through a hole in the back of the box.  This is important.

I cleaned the filter, hooked it back up, and saw that it was pumping a good flow again.  Satisfied, I closed the box, and went to dinner with my family, who have been staying with us for the holiday, at Macaroni Grill.

I was looking forward to getting to bed when we got home.  I walked in the door, played with the kids for a few minutes and heard a sound that didn’t sit right.  I heard the sound of a filter spewing water above the water line of the tank.  I ran into the family room and my heart sank when I saw that the water line in the 55G tank was about 2 inches below the black plastic rim at the top.  I opened the box, and sure enough, there was a puddle in the bottom.  Conveniently, the box has holes in the bottom, meaning that about 5 gallons of water had been released into the carpet below.  At first, I thought I didn’t seal the filter head or the hose assembly properly.  I reseated both, and the water kept coming.  I started mopping up my mess; my wife giving me the look of disapproval the whole time.  Finally, after a few minutes of drying the hoses off, I noticed that the water was leaking between the hose and the hose barb.  Apparently, when I was wrestling with the hoses to get the hose disconnect off the filter, I stretched the hose out and it did not seal around the barb any longer.  Being about 2 years old, the hose was apparently not as elastic as it was when new.  Nothing I did to push the hose onto the barb helped.  So, I was off to Home Depot for some hose clamps.  30 minutes later, I was hose clamping the crap out of all my filter connections.

Back to the carpet for a minute.  When a lot of water is unleashed into carpet in a fairly small area, the water does something that is quite similar to underground streams in nature.  Sure, the area under the filter box was soaked, but there were several spots, up to about 8 feet away, where puddles had formed and soaked through to the surface of the carpet.  These spots are maddening.  I would lay out towels on the spot, step on the towels to soak of the water, and repeat about 7,000 times for that spot.  It would seem dry, then I would move on to the next spot.  Once I was done with the next one, I would notice that the first spot is back to soaked again: the under-carpet aquifer in action.  I fought the torrent until I ran out of towels.  And with my wife being a professional shopper, we have a lot of towels.  I set up a fan to blow across the carpet.  That fan has been running for nearly 24 hours now, and the carpet is still pretty damp.

So, the lessons are:

1. Use hose clamps on fittings when running hoses for filters and the like
2. Inspect the filter 5 to 10 minutes after performing maintenance to check for leaks that you may have missed or were too slow to have made a noticeable puddle

The second lesson is particularly painful for me.  About a year ago, I did something very similar – I have a 125G tank in my bedroom with several XP filters in the cabinet below the tank.  After cleaning a filter, I reconnected everything and went about my business.  Went to bed, got up, went to work, etc.  I got a call from my wife about lunch time the next day saying that the carpet around the tank was wet.  I was able to talk her through finding the offending filter and fixing it.  I suspect about 15 to 20 gallons got out in that nightmare.  That was also my first experience with the dynamics of under-carpet water flows.  But, after that incident, I told myself that I would always go back and check a few minutes after filter maintenance.  I did it religiously for several months.  I never found a problem, and eventually I stopped doing it.  This is one of those things that you must do, every time.