Tragedy --- tank emptied need help

The real unfortunate thing is no matter how hard to try to think of everything to avoid this type of situation, the tank always seems to find a way to show you yet another way to empty onto the floor that you didn't think about. This has been my experience with 4 floods, 3 on carpet, one on hardwood. I lost everything the first time because I was at work and the problem happened early in the morning, but the other 3 times I was home and lucky enough to have supplies on hand to save everything after my first hard lesson.

Still, if my power was to go out for more than 6 hours (that is how long my huge UPS will power my heater, powerheads, and return pump) then even on my current 75G tank I would have a small flood of about 5 gallons due to back syphoning/filling and overflowing my sump. I am kind of relying on me being able to get to the tank within 6 hours if that happens to avoid the problem because in the past I have relied on check valves only to have them all fail on me that the most important time.
 
Well. It looks like one zoa colony and one paly colony may actually survive. There are two polyps on each that are just now starting to open. SO we will see.

I redid the rockscape...and ignoring the senseless death of all of the coral and fish, I am very happy to have had the opportunity to redo the rocks. It looks much better. I had my 11 year old daughter help me and she has a very good eye (plus, it was cool to have her so interested). So in the end it will be worth it I am sure. May take a bit longer than expected but not that great of a price for a lesson well learned (knock on wood).

SPoke ot a lady tonight who is friends with a highschool teacher who lost over $25,000.00 in coral during the ice storm of 07 (where we were without power for nearly 10 days). That kinda put things in perspective if ya know what I mean. There will be other duncans and clams... and brains, and, hahahaha. lol. Thanks all for putting up with my cry baby ways today.
 
Glad you're finding the positives in all this, DSR. It's a tough break, but one that you can recover from.

Losing $25k in corals would be absolutely horrific! At some point, I think it almost becomes a necessity to have a generator and a small stash of fuel onhand as a back-up in case of prolonged power outages. I'm not sure what that point is, but for me I think it would come somewhere before I ever accumulate $25k in corals. This can be a tough hobby at times... that's for sure.
 
Sorry to hear about your loss.

I do not have sw tanks but was reading somewhere about one way to safeguard agains draining a tank is to drill a small hole in any thing that can syphon your tank. Drill the holes in the tubing or what ever below the water surface at a point you decide is the most you would lose in normal operation. If an emergency happens and the water level gets to this hole air is sucked in and the syphon is broken limiting the amount of water that can be removed.

Obviously this will not work on all systems. Like I said I do not do sw or external filters that would use this and not sure if it would be usefull on your system but posting it just so the idea is there to think about.
 
This problem was 100% my fault and was directly related to my level of preparedness. First, I didn't have the chiller line secured as well as it should have been; (2) I didn't have anything at the house in case of an emergency. Both issues have now been resolved. I know have the lines secured so that they will not budge. and, I now have an adequate amount of fresh salt water prepared and ready in the event of another loss. If I had water that night my stuff would have survived I am sure (at least the coral and clam).

Still was a tough lesson to learn for sure.
 
Most definitely, I always have 50 gallons of saltwater ready for use, as well as a generator big enough to run all my tanks, freezer and fridge. It came in handy 2 years ago when we had that horrible ice storm and I was without power for a week and a half. Although it was a pain sleeping in the den with the whole family and all fishtanks, but I didnt lose a single piece of coral or fish. Not to mention getting up every 5 hrs to refill the gas tank in the generator. Its always good to be prepared for emergencies.
 
Reef, that was the same storm to which I referred earlier when the lady lost $25,000.00 in coral. We had to stay in a hotel as our baby was too little to stay in the house without heat... man, that was a crazy storm.
 
Last post on this thread and then I am moving on with my new reef... but it ends on a happy note. I kept three pieces of coral (one zoa colony, one large button polyp colony and one toadstool). As of last night I had given up on them... today they are all making a comeback... there was some loss to each colony but I am amazed that any survived. So not all is lost. These are now my prized corals...hahaha. So it is a happy night.
 
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