Contingency for Possible Leak

[Philnashbass]

They say it's bound to happen sometime....and I agree.

I was awoken at 3:30 am Sun. morning by my wife. She said she could smell something unusual and then I heard the noise of sucking/dry pumps. Ugh!

I got up and rushed to the basement, still sleepy, I found myself a little bewildered by what I was seeing and struggled to find the source of this problem. My 220 gal. FOWLR tank was smelly and noisy... I checked inside the cabinet around the sump to find that one of the plumbing elbows had disconnected and the main pump had been pumping into the cabinet area-rather than back to the aquarium. The sump is 80 gal and is usually half full during operation. Fortunately, the guy I bought the setup from had designed a collection box (where the sump sits in) that runs the length and width of the cabinet inside and is approx. 6" deep - holding approx. 40 gal. (approx. 15gal. when the sump displacing the area once installed in the collection box (which is water tight).

There was another issue of the dripping water splashing on an electrical cord that was smoldering and this was causing a burnt plastic smell. This was our main concern honestly, because the cord was not easy to see behind the tank and I could not find the source of the smokey plastic smell for some time and this caused a bit of worry.

I pumped the water out of the collection box and got the display tank running with power heads and heaters and generally got things cleaned up/organized by early morning.
Suffice to say...I got off easy, given the possibilities. I went to Home depot at 8 am and purchase PVC  glue (mine was hardened) to repair the elbow and got things up and running by noon-power heads and heaters where still operational during the waiting time between repair to system.

This raises my question of contingency. I see an obvious list of items that would be helpful in the wee hours when something catastrophic happens, such as:
1. Collection box around sump/under main tank (invaluable I have found out)
2. buckets, towels etc.
3. Spare pumps, and or utility pumps/hoses for syphoning should a pump be fried (mine where all ok)
4. Declorinated replacement water (I have at least 60 gal. at all times)
5. Spare heaters etc. to bring replacement water up to temp.
6. Fire extinguisher (sounds silly but anything is possible with electric and water)
7. Water extractor (I don't have one, but again, may sound silly but if you have carpet and a large tank - it would pay off big time.)
8. Plan powerbar and electrical lighting for the unexpected. I have now rerouted and installed plexiglass deflectors to channel possible dripping area-away from electrical etc. All my power bars are installed above water lines and mounted on the inside of my cabinet.
9. Additional empty tank(s)
10. spare pvc parts and glue/aquarium silicone

This was a good wake up call (literally) for me.
It gave me food for thought. Any other additional contingency items/thoughts by you?......

[xenon]

It happens to all of us eventually.

I was making water one day and while I was away from home, my landlord called me and said he is in my apartment because there is a flood. The only reason he knew is because the people bellow me called him.

I forgot to zip tie the rejection line for my RO/DI system and over time the line worked its way out the drain.

All the hardwood floors in my apartment had to be replaced (1200sq/ft) and all the wood in the apartment bellow me as-well. The ceiling had to be replaced also.

It ended up being a huge mess and took 3 weeks to complete. Live and learn. $$$$$