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RON (Trick):
My nightmare so far has been when I was completing my rack system particularly the mechanical filter and sump (you can see how it is setup at http://photos.yahoo.com/ronr_ca). I built the system in our spare bedroom because our basement is rented out. My wife suggested that I remove the carpet before building the system (which I am glad I listened to her). Underneath the carpet is 4" square lino tiles that look like wood flooring. What caused the problem was that the inverted water jug was set on top of the sump and would drain thru the neck of the jug into the sump. Well, everything was working just wonderfully when I left for work in the morning (had the system running for 24 hours to test it). It was around 8:30am that my wife called and she was in panic. The water was overflowing the jug and spilling on to the floor (the sump holds around 60G and there is nothing stopping the water flow until the sump empties) because the water was not flowing quick enough thru the neck of the jug. My wife was on the phone trying to contain the water on the floor and I'm trying to explain how to unplug the pump in the sump (this was before I hard wired the switch). She finally managed to find the plug and disconnect the pump.
By that time, however, there was around a half inch water on the floor in the whole room. Now my wife is really in panic. Water on the floor and must be at work by 9am. She grabbed all towels we had and laid them on the floor. By the time I got home, my wife had managed to get the water dried up. Of course, the system had not been running all day but the fortunate part was that I had no fish in the tanks yet. I was even more lucky because there was only a little water damage in the basement where the heating duct was located (water ran down the heating duct in the room upstairs). Hardly even noticeable. Some of the tiles in the bedroom have lifted at the corners but not a big deal. My wife of course tried to convince me to forget the whole idea but I persisted and convinced her that it was not going to happen again. And it has not happened. So far, anyway. I submerged the jug into the sump and drilled holes in the bottom to increase the water flow. So far, so good!
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