I removed my co2 canister this morning because it wasn't producing anything anymore, but I didn't have time to fill it up so I left for work. I just called home to check how the fish were doing and when my mom went to check she found that the water had worked itself up through the tubing and leaked about 1/3 of the tank out onto the floor (I'm just thankful that it's small tubing). Hopefully the desk won't disintegrate too (it's just particleboard). I'm anticipating going home and having my head immediately chopped off

Oh dear. A not unheard-of occurrence unfortunately.

Is it a diy c02 hummingbird, where the ingrediants sit in a coke bottle,

Mine also did this, but luckily I had left the bottle attached to the air line so it was sitting in the bottle. I had earlier emptied the bottle and so it was ony a third full.

B

I've done it too, but luckily for me it was out on the deck and we heard the water before the tank was more than half emptied :oops: :oops: :oops:

Cheers

Jude

It's a Nutrafin co2 thing, but it still uses yeast and whatnot.

dont feel so bad - in the days of airpumps and tubing - everyone syphoned off half their tank at one time or another

dry your desk out asap though - if it softens your tank will fall through

I did this about a year ago, I had removed my DIY co2 bottle one night and was going to replace it the next morning, which seemed like a good idea at the time. I was awoken to what sounded like a water fall in the next room - being the outlet of my Fluval 404 above water, it took me a few minutes to wake up and work out what it was, at which point I flew out of bed and ran into the lounge squelching water underneath my feet as I ran . The airline hose was sitting in the intake to an Aquaclear 150, about 6 inches below the water line, so the water had to siphon against the flow of the filter, up 6-8 inches of tank wall, over the edge, and then onto the brand new carpet isn't gravity wonderful! It drained about 60 litres in total which soaked the entire 5 sq m of carpet in the lounge, the water I had to replace at 3 am. It was lucky I had a dehumidifier handy, which I set to max power and went back to bed. I vacuumed the carpet using a wet and dry vac the next morning and left the dehumidifier running for a week to get the rest of the dampness out. The hardest part was not letting the landlord, who lives up stairs, find out especially when the dehumidifier sent the power bill soaring :lol: .

On my tank the spray bar was already above the waterline so noone heard it and caught on good to hear I'm not the only one who's made this mistake though.

i usually have the problem the other way around...

I fill my tank slowly with a hose so i often wander off and get distracted while it is filling. i don't want to fill it too fast because of temperature and chemical changes, not to mention the annoying waterflow destroying my meger attempts at aquascaping.

one time i heard the trickle and thought it was the washing machine filling, heard a knock at the door and whilst walking down the hallway discovered the carpet was saturated. the person at the door wanted to know why there was water running across their ceiling! (stupid apartment blocks).

and in order to make this post less OT:

those one-way-valve/flow-back-arrestors for air lines; are there any available that don't disrupt the flow of air dramatically?

I have used a few different ones (probably all the same brand in different colours knowing my luck) and although i'm sure they perform admirably at stopping the water flowing out of the tank, they also do a good job at stopping the air from flowing in! (and yes, i did get them the right way 'round )

Had brother in-law staying once. He got a lovely wake up at 2.00am with water running through the ceiling. Return pump from sump had stopped and had a bit of a syphone going from tank . Glad he was there or it would have been an empty tank.

Be thankfull its not a saltwater tank. I woke up once to over 300 litres of saltwater on my carpet.

Pies

Going for a ligther shad of carpet were you.

The same thing can happen with air pumps.

ALWAYS MOUNT YOUR AIR PUMP IN THE HOOD OR ON TOP OF YOUR AQUARIUM.

WHY --- Because if the tube comes off the air pump water will siphon down the small tube and empty your aquarium. Not a great feeling if you have just returned from work to find your place flooded and all your fish dead.

No it didnt happen to me because I caught it just in time.

Hey MD use a check valve and that won't happen.

But, you'll lose most of your airflow. Just put the airstone a few inches off the bottom of the tank, then you'll at least have a few inches of water left.

Sure it can ---- The hose can come off the check valve --- Same problem.