Sad News

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J

Just Toby

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Apr 22, 2010
2,434
176
66
Guildford UK
I am away at the moment in Cape Verde, I had a message to call home by the lady I pay to feed the Rays. We have had a long power cut after a storm and she was concerned.

It seems that the drain to waste / overflow for the constant drip had blocked and the sump had overflowed which tripped out the power.

I have always made sure that all plugs are out of food reach and that they are on 2 circuits. The drain is regularly checked and back washed.

Unfortunately one of the sump pumps had popped off the return hose and sprayed water out of the cover glass on the sump and killed the power. The drain had blocked with some dead snails and old broken K1 media.

Female has so far survived but the make died, he is the sub adult pearl male that I bought from Richard on here...sometime between 03 and 06...can't remember.

The lady phoned the emergency numbers I left and a local chap came out and removed the dead male and re plumbed the pump. We are all really gutted and I feel bad that I somehow failed to make it fail safe...although had been running 10 yrs with no issue. He back flushed the waste and found the blockage, I just hope the female survives.

I will now rebuild the whole system and may go for the monster tank I always threatened. When I am ready I will contact Richard and see what mini marbles he has.

For now my 8 yr old is in pieces and I am sad and angry...2 more days of holiday and the return home to sort the mess out and bury my old boy (freezer for now)
 
Sorry to hear. How long was the power out?

I always try to learn from these stories.

I have added heater controls so the heaters dont stay on. Gfi so the fish dont get electtic current and no person gets shocked. Redundant pumps. Etc etc. my alarm system alerts me to power outages.

I may put a video feed on the tanks to see the pumps and air stones working so when i get a power outage i can look in on them to be sure they restart.

Again. Sorry for yor lose.

I did learn something from you.....have an emergency number for someone to come in and restart/repair. Thx for the idea! Something good did come from it.

Eddie
 
The odd thing is the power was off for about 12 hours, maybe 14, I can only think it was aeration, all my heaters (3) sit on different plug lines and 2 different circuits.

Luckily I had an orange dot on each of the pumps and one heater so over the phone I could explain that as long as the plugs with the orange spots have power then the fish are going to be ok, the rest is nice to have like lights etc...luckily the feeding lady and my mother in law were in such a flap that a neighbour poked his head in and I was able to talk him through it before the emergency bloke arrived. The police even turned up as a neighbour knew I was away and saw an unusual van on my drive (it was the emergency bloke)

I do have a live cctv feed and sadly I was listening when the emergency guy said the male was dead and removed him.

I will now find a way of adding an air stone on battery back up that either runs 24/7 or more likely kicks in when the power goes out. I will also add some form of second overflow so if the first fails the second still goes to waste.

I hadn't killed off the snails in the sump as the Rays seemed to like eating the babies that the pumps circulated, I will replace all the k1 as I think this breaking down lead to the blockage....that's if I don't rip the system apart and replace with new...have always thought that 2-3 inch drains would be better for waste and faster big water changes.

I have a generator in case of power cuts but it doesn't auto start and needs me there to get it working, it is over £7k to have a full time auto start generator and this is the first long powercut I have had in 20 plus yrs and the water spray from the pump that broke away would still have tripped it out......just angry that I didn't have plastic clips making sure the pipe work couldn't pop off the pumps.
 
J Just Toby

How old are your K1? Another learning tip.

I bought an electric start generator. So what i do is plug it it. Gas it up and leave it ready. So all anyone has to do is hit the start button and it makes power. Then i have someone go in and make aure the pumps all start. The jabeo pumps seem to not reatart 100% of the time.....accorfing to the reviews.
 
eddiegunks said:
J Just Toby

How old are your K1? Another learning tip.

I bought an electric start generator. So what i do is plug it it. Gas it up and leave it ready. So all anyone has to do is hit the start button and it makes power. Then i have someone go in and make aure the pumps all start. The jabeo pumps seem to not reatart 100% of the time.....accorfing to the reviews.
Click to expand...

That's an idea, you need a seperate pump and heater for that I assume as you need the generator isolated from the mains or it can blow when power comes back in.
 
Just Toby said:
That's an idea, you need a seperate pump and heater for that I assume as you need the generator isolated from the mains or it can blow when power comes back in.
Click to expand...

No. It is hooked into the entire building. You can get an automatic switch lever that senses when the power is off and you start the generator it automatically switched so no juice goes out the building and down the power lines.

I have mine set up so you manually have to turn off the main breaker to keep the juice from going out and down the power lines.

They both do the same thing. This way my entire huilding has power/heat/lights etc. obviously not all is on at once.
 
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