Almost disaster

ididntdoit99

ididntdoit99
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I was just reminded of this when reading another thread on here. We did have an almost disaster when we were gone on vacation, and i actually had my sister staying at my house to watch the dog and pond for me.


We left Monday, and my sister didn't get there until Tuesday night. I had shown her just a few basic things, to fill the pond up if it was low, to clean the skimmer out. Didn't really expect her to have to do much more than that.(of course, you never expect the worst)

So she finally texts me on Thursday night and says "your pond and I are not getting along" and "I'm like oh great what happened now", and she shes "this thing has a hole in it or something, It was low when i got here on Tuesday" and I've been trying to fill it ever since and it just keeps dropping down"

So the first thing i think is great there is a hole, and then I'm like no... there just cant be, more than likely my skippy filter has split or something, that would happen before my liner would get a hole. so i tell her to find the plug in for the pump in the skimmer, and unplug that one, it should be fine with just the one pump running for the rest of the week. She texts me back about 5 minutes later "i got all wet trying to find the cord and follow it back, but its unplugged."

My response "uh WHAT.... why did you get all wet?" "well the fountain is shooting all over the place" "what fountain? There is no fountain in the pond!"

The connection right at the pump in the skimmer had come off, and was shooting water straight into the air and out of the pond, draining my pond. The fish were in no danger, because it could only drain so far, but she saved the pump from burning out. BUT... for the three days until she finally told me about it, she had been refilling the pond for me and had been running the water for hours at a time, and then watching the level drop back down before refilling it again. We have a well (with pretty good readings) so I wasn't concerned about water quality, but was very concerned about the huge temperature change in the water that she had just added.

After I explained it to her, she reconnected the hose the next morning and got that pump running again. and I came home to all fish alive, albeit a much colder water temp than when I had left.
 

addy1

water gardener / gold fish and shubunkins
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Yeah for your sis! At least you had her watching over it for you.
 

j.w

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Funny story and I can just visualize it now.............her enjoying your nice fountain and getting soaked trying to fill it up over and over. Guess that's Murphy's law for ya!
 
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Oh my goodness! Did she not think it was strange that the 'fountain' was shooting the water OUT of the pond?!
 

ididntdoit99

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Oh my goodness! Did she not think it was strange that the 'fountain' was shooting the water OUT of the pond?!

Apparently not, I really don't know what she was thinking, there sure wasn't a fountain on Sunday night before we left and she came over and I showed her what to do in the first place.
 
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The power of the human mind's ability to construct a reality for itself is limitless. The most common question I get when people see my pondless waterfall...doesn't that use a lot of water? The water recirculates. Oh, that makes more sense.
 

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