As many of you know, we have a 300 gallon aquarium in our great room.  Along with that 300 gallons of water is a 100 gallon refugium, which is the filter system for the tank. Well, last night one of out worst fears came to be. For some reason the power went out in our neighborhood last night. We’re still not sure why, but it went out around 11:30 last night. Phil went downstairs to check the water level to make sure everything was OK and that the refugium wasn’t overflowing. Everything was fine. The power came back on around 2:30 according to the clocks this morning.

Phil went downstairs when he got up to check on the tank and make sure everything was OK. What he discovered was a huge mess. There was no water left in the refugium! Apparently when the power came back on, it must have stuttered a few times, and the pressure of the water pushed the hose for the skimmer out of the refugium. Then the skimmer continued to suck all of the water out of the refugium and into the floor! 100 gallons of salt water in the carpet!

The first thing I did was call a carpet cleaning company to see if they could get out here today. We have a carpet cleaner, but this was going to take some heavy duty suction to get the water out of the carpet. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been I guess. The water was pretty much contained to the area around the aquarium, and at least wasn’t all over the room. So the carpet company says that someone will be here in about an hour. So we proceed to move everything out of the room that we can. All of the bookcases, coffee table, chair, nick-knacks, and ends tables are now piled in our kitchen!

The carpet guys gets there and we’re all trying to figure out the best way to get the water up. A lot of the water ended up behind the aquarium, which sits about 5 inches away from the way. Of course there was no way to get to that. He sucked up all of the water that was in front and on the sides of the tank. Then we had to pull the carpet up from the corner so he could put a high power fan that blows under the carpet. Then we pulled up the carpet in another coner and put one there. The carpet now looks like wave in the ocean! He also sprayed this stuff on the carpet that will prevent any kind of mildew. Then he brings in a commercial grade dehumidifier to pull the moisture out of the air and carpet. All of this cost $300, but he did feel really bad for us, so when he comes back next week to pick up the fans and the dehumidifier, he’s going to clean the carpet in there and in Jordan’s playroom for us for free.

All the time I’m sitting there watching the room being torn apart, and I’m thinking, “How are we going to have Christmas with the room like this??” The guys said that hopefully the carpet and padding would be dry by in the morning. We still have another dilemma though. All of the carpet on that side of the room is going to have to be stretched and re-tacked. We can just lay it down for now, and hopefully it won’t wrinkle and buckle too much. Then we still have to put everything back in the room and get it back to a livable state. Right now you can’t even really walk in there because the carpet is all billowed up from the fans. What a nightmare! Merry Christmas to us! Maybe we should change our names to Griswold – LOL!

So anyway, with all of this going on, there won’t be a freebie today. I will try and get something up for you guys tomorrow. Hope you enjoy you day – I know I’ve been loving mine so far – LOL!