# Holiday disaster.



## fleabilly (4 Jan 2013)

Happy holidays and new year.
I went to the states for the holidays, and came back to a bit of a disaster.
I have two tanks.
One is 100l open top rimless 
The other is a closed 32l shrimp tank.
We were gone for two weeks.
I would imagine after the first week.
The water in the larger tank had evaporated enough to expose the spray bar.
The spray bar was angled high in order to agitate the surface a bit.

When we got home,
The spray bar had watered the carpet with the tank water until it had reached the intake level, then stopped. Big fish all died, but the tetras are all alive.

Needless to say the shrimp tank looks great. My moss tree is pretty fab






Needless to say the carpet smells like hell. I am going to try to steam it in hopes of killing the smell. Not sure if anyone has had any luck, but I figure it is cheaper than replacement. The carpet itself is that really cheap stuff, so I am not worried about stains and such.

But my question is about mulm.
I am planning on breaking down the tank, and rescaping it with akadama.
I read in the blog about using a layer of mulm in the new substrate to help kick things off. I was wondering how to gather this, and how to store it? Not sure how long it will take to rebuild the tank, and I am curious of how long the mulm might keep.

It might be a springtime build.
Who knows



Cheers


R


Sent


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## roadmaster (4 Jan 2013)

Just use some mulm from substrate ,or filter material from your other tank when you decide to re-do the other one.


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## Ady34 (4 Jan 2013)

Bummer mate, sorry to hear that.
Iain (easerthegeezer) had an incident not too long ago where a lot of his tank water ended up on the carpet. Im sure he just wet vac'd it out and it was good as new.....maybe message him for confirmation, or maybe he'll pop an answer up here when he sees it. Theres a thread somewhere in general tank discussions.

Moss tree looks great by the way 
Cheerio,
Ady.


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## kirk (5 Jan 2013)

sorry to hear about the carpet and fish loss. that a fine looking moss tree. is that a frog to the left? hard to tell on this phone screen.


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## nayr88 (5 Jan 2013)

HOLD ON A BLOODY SECOND!!!
YOUR SHRIMP HAVE BUILT A CRACKING WHITE PICKET FENCE!!!

Sorry to hear about your loss, open top tanks are a cruel mistress


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## fleabilly (5 Jan 2013)

Yes,
 The frogs are trashing the place.
White picket fence is down,
Place is mighty crowded til I get the larger tank back up.




Sent


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## Brian Murphy (5 Jan 2013)

Not nice at all ... hope you get the mess cleared


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## fleabilly (5 Jan 2013)

Got a rug doctor...
Ran it over and over the rug with chemicals and febreeze. And bicarbonate soda...
Still smells a bit. 

I had laid a layer of sand under solid that I had capped with gravel.
I checked the gravel and soil, but thought I might keep the sand to put in the new tank.

Do you reckon that might be a plus to speed up any possible cycle in the new tank?

R


Sent


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## Polly (27 Feb 2013)

Sorry about your disaster, must have been awful getting home to that  

Regarding the smell still in the carpet, you could try a Bio Clothes washing liquid, diluted in warm water and used in a VAX machine or Rug Doctor.	The enzymes will get rid of most smells, as a rinse you could use white vinegar and water through the VAX	 When we had carpets we gave up buying the Vax Liquid wash and just used Bio Clothes Wash - any cheap one will do, it's far cheaper and left the carpets cleaner and fresher 	I now use the same Bio Liquid to clean and freshen the patio and yard which the dogs use, gets rid of any nasty smells 

Regarding using mulm on/under new substrate, I harvest it from the filter. Don't rinse, just squeeze the medium and all the lovely mulm will come out ready for use. Sprinkled on/under new substrate it works a treat


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