huge mess - help??

[berkdog]

Last night, my new refugium outtake plugged up so this morning 10-15 gallons of water was all over my carpet.

I cleared the clog (floating macro algae), took out most of the algae so it wouldn't be as likely to happen again, and then I got as many towels as possible and even rented a huge carpet blower to help with the flood. I refilled the missing water (it's like an extra water change for the fish), and everything is okay except for my carpet.

The tank/stand sit on carpet. So should I worry about the water that got underneath the tank?

Should I try to move the entire stand/tank to another position to dry up the carpet underneath? My glass tank is 72 gallons, so I'll have to move out all of the water first, then move the tank to a temporary place on the tile, then re-add all of the water.

I'm sorta shocked and not sure what to do, and my back is sore... :-X

Suggestions, ideas...?? Thanks team

[charlie]

You are going to run into mold problems if you don't clean up!!!! Are you renting?
You may not see the humor in this, but welcome to the flood control club, happens to the best of us, won't be the last time you will be in cleanup mode.

[reefhead728]

I have my tank on carpet as well, invest in a very good shopvac.

[berkdog]

thanks team. yeah, i rented a huge floor blower for floods... and also an industrial strength shopvac. the shopvac is really worthless now since i didn't go rent it until soaking up the main water with towels. sigh... tonight i'm going to work on moving the tank over 5 feet so it can dry underneath. i'm traveling to asia this weekend for a few weeks!

[charlie]

Who is taking care of your tank?

[berkdog]

i bought 2 45 gallon garbage containers and bags. washed/rinsed them. dried them. then filled 1 with the tank's water. then moved everything inside of it. then filled the other garbage with the rest of the tank's water. scooped out as much sand as possible, then 2 of us were able to lift the tank while another person moved the stand. then put back in sand and water, then everything else slowly. wa-la! the tank was moved in about 5 hours! and my back still hurts.

while gone, 2 house mates will take care of everything. hopefully all will go well! i'm in dept to them

[berkdog]

btw, now the the carpet is drying... i now have an empty space! maybe i should replace it with a new larger tank. 180 gallon 6'x2'x2'? it would fit where the old one was, and i could sell the older 72 gallon?? ha... just thinking about it.

[charlie]

So, you moved your existing sandbed???? You may run into some problems with that!!! You have been set up for what, 3 months?

[berkdog]

I moved out maybe 1/4 of the sand. Moved the whole tank with 3/4 of the sand... then replaced the sand, etc.

Yeah 3 months.

[charlie]

OH, so you only maybe moved the top layer? You should alert your tanksitters just in case they start to see something that looks like a cycle. I doubt they will, but rather be prepared than sorry.

[berkdog]

just the top layer... yeah. why? i might have hurt the bacteria sitting on the sand? what about the rock and filter?

[charlie]

The rock will be fine. Do a little searching around on moving a sand bed.

[john1948]

I have been away from the hobby for about 14 years and just reentered the hobby recently. I purchased a refugium filtering system for my new aquarium. To the best of my knowledge, this system was not available 14 years ago. So, my question is, Is there anything you could have done to prevent the clog?

John1948

[berkdog]

now i have pieces of rock on top of the algae so it's not floating around. perhaps putting a net somewhere so the algae gets trapped earlier might help too...