Yesterday night, me and my partner were preparing to go to bed when we heard a loud bang and the sound of water gushing.
We rushed to my office where our 5 tanks are and discovered one of our tanks blown apart and the floor completely flooded. We spent the next two hours in full panic mode throwing every piece of towel at our floor and hand-wringing them out into buckets, cutting up a wet carpet so it wont soak the floor beneath and throwing everything that got thoroughly wet out and into plastic bags.
The tank that blew a chunk out must have something happen to it during our last, recent re-scape, although I do not know what. The tank in question was emptied by us on Friday and then cleaned and re-scaped over the weekend. I actually had just refilled the tank with water like 8 hours earlier.
The general damage is… thankfully minimal. I have spoken to my landlord and the tenant below me and we looked for any kind of water damage to the structure or the ceiling of the apartment below me but thankfully couldn’t find any. I’ve also spoken to my insurance, which would thankfully cover my aquarium water damage the building or another tenants possessions.
My personal damages are… negligible as well. I am obviously down one tank, but the tanks inhabitants were in quarantine because I had just started re-cycling the tank. The laminate floor took a beating in the form of swelling edges, but that floor as long been past its lifetime and already needed to be replaced by me. A cheap rug died for my sins and a few things that lay on the ground got wet. Thankfully I’ve always kept an ankle high zone free of most things. And my motivation to be an aquarist has been thoroughly squashed.
As for the tank… I have no idea what happened. Maybe I did something wrong while cleaning it, maybe the bottom corner got dinged while moving it? I have seen tanks fail in the past but not like this. The bottom left part of this curved-corner tank just… popped out. There’s no splinters or anything. I could just silicone the part that blew out back in, it fits perfectly.
The tank itself was an 80L(about 21gal) Blau Aquaristic panorama tank that had about 65L (about 15gal) of water in it when it blew. The tank was about two years old at this point.
Bottom lines: I am just very happy I was home when this happened. Normally I’d say “home and awake” but the bang from the tank bursting was so awfully loud that my downstairs neighbors heard it.
I was also negatively amazed at how powerful this little water is. The rushing water not only ripped out most plants out of the tank and threw them several meters across the room, it also completely disassembled a testing toolkit and shot its contents across the room.
I had no power outage and no tripped tripped breakers, thanks to me being always very anal about having drip loops, using splash-protected electrical boxes and having no power connectors on the ground.
I am going to form some kind of emergency kit, because using towels and a mop just doesn’t do. I’m at least going to get one of those water vacuum things. And another rug, cause that rug chugged water like a champion. If you have suggestions, I’d love to hear them.
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No animals were thankfully harmed!
Yesterday night, me and my partner were preparing to go to bed when we heard a loud bang and the sound of water gushing.
We rushed to my office where our 5 tanks are and discovered one of our tanks blown apart and the floor completely flooded. We spent the next two hours in full panic mode throwing every piece of towel at our floor and hand-wringing them out into buckets, cutting up a wet carpet so it wont soak the floor beneath and throwing everything that got thoroughly wet out and into plastic bags.
The tank that blew a chunk out must have something happen to it during our last, recent re-scape, although I do not know what. The tank in question was emptied by us on Friday and then cleaned and re-scaped over the weekend. I actually had just refilled the tank with water like 8 hours earlier.
The general damage is… thankfully minimal. I have spoken to my landlord and the tenant below me and we looked for any kind of water damage to the structure or the ceiling of the apartment below me but thankfully couldn’t find any. I’ve also spoken to my insurance, which would thankfully cover my aquarium water damage the building or another tenants possessions.
My personal damages are… negligible as well. I am obviously down one tank, but the tanks inhabitants were in quarantine because I had just started re-cycling the tank. The laminate floor took a beating in the form of swelling edges, but that floor as long been past its lifetime and already needed to be replaced by me. A cheap rug died for my sins and a few things that lay on the ground got wet. Thankfully I’ve always kept an ankle high zone free of most things. And my motivation to be an aquarist has been thoroughly squashed.
As for the tank… I have no idea what happened. Maybe I did something wrong while cleaning it, maybe the bottom corner got dinged while moving it? I have seen tanks fail in the past but not like this. The bottom left part of this curved-corner tank just… popped out. There’s no splinters or anything. I could just silicone the part that blew out back in, it fits perfectly.
The tank itself was an 80L(about 21gal) Blau Aquaristic panorama tank that had about 65L (about 15gal) of water in it when it blew. The tank was about two years old at this point.
Bottom lines: I am just very happy I was home when this happened. Normally I’d say “home and awake” but the bang from the tank bursting was so awfully loud that my downstairs neighbors heard it.
I was also negatively amazed at how powerful this little water is. The rushing water not only ripped out most plants out of the tank and threw them several meters across the room, it also completely disassembled a testing toolkit and shot its contents across the room.
I had no power outage and no tripped tripped breakers, thanks to me being always very anal about having drip loops, using splash-protected electrical boxes and having no power connectors on the ground.
I am going to form some kind of emergency kit, because using towels and a mop just doesn’t do. I’m at least going to get one of those water vacuum things. And another rug, cause that rug chugged water like a champion. If you have suggestions, I’d love to hear them.
You should post this to /r/wellthatsucks