I was in the middle of a water change on my 60 gallon tang community when the phone rang. It was my friend I'd been playing phone tag with, so I started talking, and before you know it, I hear the drainage hose lose suction on the tank. I turned around and I had emptied 75% of the water out of the tank, possibly even a little more. Even though the water I use to refill the tank goes through an under the kitchen sink large carbon cartridge, I added a triple dose of Prime to the tank before refilling it. Suprisingly, all the inhabitants dealt well with the extra large water change. Even the petricola cats which tend to get itchy after a normal size water change, did exceedingly well, they didn't get the itchies at all.

That should be okay, so long as the water was treated. I have seen a setup where a guy taps right in to his cold water pipe and constantly pumps fresh water in the tanks with a small dose of prime and it seems to work well for him.




j

Been there / done that glad that everything was ok. I think the added prime was a good safety call on your part. Cheers!!!


I have even done the opposite...yackety, yack and I hear the unnerving sound of Niagra Falls as I overflow the tank I was filling up Giggly

I've done it both ways ..... more than once. worry wart!

It's a good thing the hose wasn't all the way down to the bottom!!

lol ive done that when i was refilling the tank..
my tap heads got something on it already so no python for me..
the old fahsioned bucket and siphon..

i was talking to someone and i forgot i had water running. i run back to the kitchen and the buckets over flowing! good thing it was in the sink, or else there woulda been a big mess over the kitchen and i would have gotten screamed at Giggly

i do 90% water changes in my 5G, so dont worry Tres Bien!
tanks way to small for water changes. but theres fry, so i gotta do the water changes

Yeah, I am SO glad I didn't have the siphon on the bottom of the tank! I would've been so upset if I drained the tank to nothing. I've also had the experience of accidentally starting a siphon going on a 40 gallon tank I use as a water reservoir, and completely draining the tank into a carpeted living room! That was when I learned what carpet fans were, and how to pull up a carpet and set one of those up. Good thing my neighbor knew where I could rent one and how to use it.

I don't use the reservoir anymore, just got too busy when we rescued Dennis (our third dog) last fall. I told myself the fish were just going to have to deal with water coming straight from the sink (with carbon filter) and treating tank with Prime. So far, it's been working out, other than the petricolas being a bit itchy, but this last time, that wasn't even a problem.

Hey Les, how's your rescue dog doing?

PoohBear, I have a friend that has been doing cichlids for over 40 years. He told me from time to time he does as much as 80% water changes. It never has any bad effects on his fish. Glad you had no problems.