I just wanted to let everyone know that Rick saved our tank Monday morning at 4AM. Colleen and I were in Seattle for the weekend, and had stayed Sunday night as well. At 4AM, my phone alert goes off - the 270 gallon tank is calling me. In a panic, I get up and check to see what the problem is...turns out my low sump level switch had triggered the alarm. So, we are 4 hours away, freaking out, and I know something needs to be done. I call Rick & Barbie. Barbie answers, and in my panic, I just ask if Rick is there, not mentioning who it is or why I'm calling. Of course, Barbie asks who it is and why I'm calling so early, but quickly understands once I get rid of the brain freeze and tell her what's going on. She quickly got Rick up and on the phone (the poor guy had gone to bed about 1AM). Rick went to our house and found the elevated refugium overflowing onto the floor (later investigation revealed that a clump of cheato plugged my back-up drain. I think my primary was having issues already earlier - I notice the warning signs as I look back now, but didn't think much of it before we left on Saturday). Rick slowed the flow on the feed and opened up the primary drain more and got things under control for us by about 4:30. He called me back and told us that our floor drain had done its job, and things were back under control.
All I can say is Rick, We OWE you one! Actually, make that two...if it weren't for you, we wouldn't have known about the Aquacontroller, and we would never have known we were having a problem until we got home at 7 PM Monday night. At that point, it would have been a huge problem! Either we'd have had a fresh water tank, or an empty tank...either way, I'm sure we would have lost a lot of fish & corals! It's times like this that you quickly learn who your friends are - being willing to get up and drive to our house on 3 hours of sleep to fix a mess...that pretty much says it all.
