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- Nov 4, 2016
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PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT -- I meant to mention this last week, but totally forgot!
If you haven't checked your emergency overflows for awhile, go and check them! I woke up one morning this past week and went down to check on the tank before work and noticed a "questionable" nassarious snail that I am still skeptical could be a whelk...it was within 6 inches of the top of the tank, so I opened the top screen to grab him (and sump him for awhile). When I lifted my screen lid, the water was to the top of the tank and touching my screen! I looked over to the emergency drain line and it was about 2" below the water surface...and no water going into the sump!!! I attempted to push a hose through the line but it was hitting something solid. From the bottom, I attempted to shove my fingers up into the line and hit something solid...and then snail shells started pouring out! I ended up using a screwdriver to break them up and clear the line!
I wondered where all my Trochus snails had disappeared to! Well, I found them...along with about a hundred dwarf cerith snails as well. They were so tightly packed in and had started to calcify around them that they totally blocked the emergency drain line!
Now, I'm wondering if those snails were in that line rotting all along...which may have caused an ammonia spike resulting in the die-off of my other snails that seemed to start dropping all around the same time! But, my cleaner shrimp seemed very healthy...and those are good indicators for something off in a tank!
Thank goodness I checked that morning AND that questionable snail was within grabbing distance! Otherwise, I would have come home to a flooded room that evening!
Forgot to add -- Also when cleaning out the emergency line, I also started getting a "trickle" of water from my bulkhead...which turned into much more than a trickle as I was attempting to remove my union on that line! Luckily, it was also a simple fix...the bulkhead nut had really loosened on the emergency drain line and the full siphon drain line!
If you haven't checked your emergency overflows for awhile, go and check them! I woke up one morning this past week and went down to check on the tank before work and noticed a "questionable" nassarious snail that I am still skeptical could be a whelk...it was within 6 inches of the top of the tank, so I opened the top screen to grab him (and sump him for awhile). When I lifted my screen lid, the water was to the top of the tank and touching my screen! I looked over to the emergency drain line and it was about 2" below the water surface...and no water going into the sump!!! I attempted to push a hose through the line but it was hitting something solid. From the bottom, I attempted to shove my fingers up into the line and hit something solid...and then snail shells started pouring out! I ended up using a screwdriver to break them up and clear the line!
I wondered where all my Trochus snails had disappeared to! Well, I found them...along with about a hundred dwarf cerith snails as well. They were so tightly packed in and had started to calcify around them that they totally blocked the emergency drain line!
Now, I'm wondering if those snails were in that line rotting all along...which may have caused an ammonia spike resulting in the die-off of my other snails that seemed to start dropping all around the same time! But, my cleaner shrimp seemed very healthy...and those are good indicators for something off in a tank!
Thank goodness I checked that morning AND that questionable snail was within grabbing distance! Otherwise, I would have come home to a flooded room that evening!
Forgot to add -- Also when cleaning out the emergency line, I also started getting a "trickle" of water from my bulkhead...which turned into much more than a trickle as I was attempting to remove my union on that line! Luckily, it was also a simple fix...the bulkhead nut had really loosened on the emergency drain line and the full siphon drain line!
