Almost had a disaster

The second day of the Christmas break was very hot with temperatures almost touching 40 degrees. I decided to do partial water changes in both my tanks. It was all routine and everything should have been completed in just 20-30 minutes.

I started with my 100 L tank. I recently changed the lights of this tank and was under the impression that the lid was well secured. The lights are well secured to the lid but I found out that the lid itself is not. The good thing is I always switch off the mains for all the electrical in and around the tank whenever I am doing water changes. I was trying to remove the filter behind the lid and somehow the lid came off and went straight into the water. The end that went into the water has the ballast. I pulled it out quickly and thought there goes all the money for the new lights down the drain. I left the lid with the lights out in the hot sun and continued cleaning the filter and finished the partial water change. At least all the fish were fine.

I then started with the other tank and decided to rinse the filter media of the Sacem filter as well. I had not touched it since I had set it up and this would be the first time I was going to clean it. All that could go wrong started to go wrong. First a clip broke and I had to glue it back. I was not able to get the filter to shut airtight. As soon as I opened the valves the lid started to come off and the water started siphoning out. I however figured it out quickly that since I had the inlet and outlet valves shut when trying to close the filter lid there was no where for the air to escape. I had to open one of the valves and make sure that before it starts siphoning out the water, quickly close the lid.

Fortunately I was able to fix the filter and its still running without any leaks...so I don't need to spend on a new filter. Luckily for me the hot temperature on that day helped to dry out the lights as well. I left it overnight to dry and tested it the next day only once I was sure there was no water at all. I first tested without the globes to make sure that at least the circuits were not shorting. Once that did not cause any sparks or tripped the mains, I connected the globes. Woohooo...they worked. 

From now on I have decided to work on only 1 tank on any given day.