broken aquarium all over my carpet.. what do i do?

tranceFusion

tranceFusion

AC Members
Mar 21, 2007
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Frederick, MD
I live in a ground floor apartment. I was doing a water change in my 30 gallon tank and I guess I must have tapped the decor into my glass or something?? I don't know.. I just know that I came back the next day (last night) and the tank was cracked from top to bottom and nearly all of the water was on the floor! i only had a couple of fish in there as the tank was fairly new and they were ok..

I rented a RugDoctor and tried to suck up as much water as I could... but only a few gallons came up.

The water seems to be concentrated in a couple of specific spots - but the carpet and padding is quite squishy and saturated.

What am I supposed to do?? Is there any chance that I am going to be able to get this dry? or do I have to call a professional?
 
lots and lots of towels.. and even more towels. wring and sop, wring and sop.. get as much up as you can, and keep on sopping it up.
 
after it is done, THEN make sure you run some fans or something in the room to circulate the air.. all it takes is a couple days for fungus and mold to grow, and THEN you WILL need a professional.
 
Box fans are good for this sort of thing. Jumping jacks on towels to soak up water.

New tank, all old "stuff" & fish into that... not necessarily in that order.
 
They make big fans that kind of look like snails -- they're round, and blow air out of the bottom. Here's a pic. They're made to dry carpet. Is there an equipment rental place near you? Like if you needed to rent a big dolly to move your refrigerator, or do some home improvement? I'd look for a place like that and see if you can get a big fan like this. Try pulling up the edge of the carpet and blowing air underneath it.

air_mover_large.jpg
 
but has this ever happened to anyone else? i know when i leave my clothes in the washing machine for like a day they start to mildew. i just don't see this carpet getting dry in a couple of days.

can i (with no handyman skills whatsoever) pull up the carpet and squeeze out or replace the carpet padding, or put some type of mildew retardant stuff down?
 
you won't be able to, because the carpet and padding is tacked to the floor.. it would be a bigger pain to remove it.

try getting one of those big fans.. those would be capable of drying it overnight.
 
You don't pull up the whole carpet. You just pull it up at the edge and tuck the fan outlet under. It dries the carpet from underneath. They're made just for this.

There's a good chance your carpet is held down around the edge by tackless strips. You just pull the carpet up, and you can push it back down after you're done. Tackless strips are kind of like trim with tacks already in it. They're nailed down around the edges of the room, then the carpet is just pushed down on top. The carpet isn't actually tacked down if these are used.

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