I almost quit the hobby last night! I was working on my new MTC PROCAL reactor and noticed a leak in the main chamber seal. I shut the reactor pump off and was fiddling around with those annoying little screws and decided to go ahead and pull it out of the stand.

Wouldn’t ya know, I managed to find the only piece of tubing that didn’t have a clamp on it! (Lesson 1 : Tubing is easy, PVC doesn’t come loose) Apparently I neglected to go back and clamp that one piece of tubing on that end. What a dumb mistake and a testament to why one shouldn’t get in a hurry when building a tank… needless to say, I knocked the drain hose off with a big reactor in my hands.

Water is now going EVERYWHERE. I scrambled to get the reactor back on the ground, grabbed the hose and got it back on the bulkhead. As i’m walking away to go get an army of towels, the pump runs dry. Enough water had run out of the tank to successful drain the pump chamber. And then… I start to hear the inevitable “sizzle” sound from a surge protector that had gotten wet. Any body want to guess where a large portion of my electrical was sitting? Fortunately, all of the GFCI actually worked and everything shut down. (Lesson 2 : GFCI. Always, Always, Always)

Now here’s where it gets interesting. Just when I thought I had it back under control…

I get all of the affected electrical out of there and start soaking up water. During that process, I managed to KNOCK OFF THE CANOPY! Okay, so apparently, my canopy has no nifty piece of wood on the back to prevent it from sliding forward off of the tank! (Lesson 3 : If your canopy will slide off of your tank with just a push, FIX THAT ASAP)

What a mess… i’m standing there, wedged behind my tank, holding on to my canopy that’s loaded with expensive lighting and reflectors. Anybody want to guess where I set my new electrical stuff that I was about to install? You guessed it! On top of the canopy! Seeing as the canopy is now at a 45 degree angle, everything has now slid off… into my ATO reservoir, which I just moved to the front of the tank so I could get behind there. (Lesson 4 : 12″ from the wall is NOT far enough, you will need more space! Deal with the look of it or run a smaller tank that you don’t need to get behind!)

So I have now managed to ruin my old electrical stuff as well as my new electrical stuff, gotten water all over the floor, and have no idea what equipment works and what doesn’t. I got the circ pumps back up, set two of them to break the surface tension, tossed in a heater and WENT TO BED. (Lesson 5 : If you’re that tired, you’re probably doing more harm than good)

Insert 8 hour sleep break here

I have now spent the better part of the morning putting everything back together, all of the “core” equipment is working but I have yet to test the calcium reactor, ATO, etc… my 3 IceCap 660′s survived the splashing and all of the bulbs survived. Even my moonlight LEDs made it. I’m not sure about the reactor pump just yet, but I consider that a minor loss if I have to buy a new one. That last piece of flexible tubing is now CLAMPED in place. (Lesson 6 : Using Flexible tubing as PVC elbows is a neat concept but turns out to be a big PITA in the end)

So, that’s the end of my story. I was ready to start bagging livestock and taking it to the various stores. But man… i’m sooooo close. I can’t help but love this hobby. I’ve invested all of this time and money to get it running, and now i’ve learned yet another lesson that will make my next tank even better!

I’m still in the fight, but wow did I want to quit.

Let me summarize all of this into one small, informative list and add one more…

Lesson 1 : Tubing is easy, PVC doesn’t come loose
Lesson 2 : GFCI. Always, Always, Always
Lesson 3 : If your canopy will slide off of your tank with just a push, FIX THAT ASAP
Lesson 4 : 12″ from the wall is NOT far enough, you will need more space! Deal with the look of it or run a smaller tank that you don’t need to get behind!
Lesson 5 : If you’re that tired, you’re probably doing more harm than good
Lesson 6 : Using Flexible tubing as PVC elbows is a neat concept but turns out to be a big PITA in the end
Lesson 7 : Big calcium reactors are freakin’ cool… After all of this crap, i’m staring at my PROCAL going “Wow… that’s just cool”