1st ever real emergency

[RayAllen]

7 years ive been in the saltwater hobby, longer in freshwater and ive never had a flood, tank burst or any of that untill today.

All I have to say is im lucky to work from home.

Around 11am today my wife comes into the home office and tells me water is on the floor around the tank. I didnt panic, I thought maybe a fish jumped out and there are a few spots with water, NOPE!

There was about 5gallons of water on the floor, in and under the stand and the power was completely off to everything. The sump full to the top, but not flowing over anymore. I was completely confused as to what happen for the 1st few minutes, trying to collect my thoughts.

Im looking at everything and it seems ok, then I remember. I just redid my rock work on Sunday and in doing so I also had my lockline returns bent over lower in the water, below the water line. I never drilled holes in them to let air in incase of a power outage because ive always had the nozzel at the very top of the water line which prevents backflow. I would kick my self in the head if I could, I know to drill those freaking holes.

So thats one question answered, I know how the sump overflowed.

Now to figure out why everything (the power) shut off and why my home breaker tripped. I go flip the breaker on and it goes right back off, tried again and it did the same. Im then poking my head around in the stand looking at all the cords, making sure none of them were submerged in water (all mine are high in the stand to prevent this, but I check anyway). As im unpluging everything to clean up all the water, I can smell a electric burning smell and I know somethings wrong.

I smell the outlet them selves, surge protectors, pumps, and lights not them. I then smell my 2 250watt stealth heaters and walla, they shorted out and smelled horrible. Had my wife smell them just to make sure my nose wasnt lieing to me (allergy season and I cant smell much) What the heck caused this, I always thought these were reliable heaters. Ive heard horror stories of heaters shorting out and causing far more damage so I consider myself lucky.

After a couple of hours, water is cleaned up, everything is back on line, and I have a fan blowing in, around and under the stand.

Man that was a scare, everything in the tank is acting normal. Those heaters are going in the trash. Ive never really used heaters because its warm here in SA, but when i brought the 180g online I figured it was best for temp swings. I think im going to go without them again and rely on all the pumps and lights to generate most of the heat.

I went ahead and organized my electrics during the cleanup. I have all my pumps- 3 koralias, skimmer pump, autotop off and mag return on one surge protector. I have all my lights Icecap 660 and moonlights/fuge light on another with 2 spaces left for the 2 icecap 250w MH ballast which is arriving today:bigsmile:. Now im worried that my outlet cant hold all of this, or can it?

Thanks for reading my temporary scary aquarium mishap.

-Breathing a little calmer-

Ray

[Europhyllia]

Wow. Glad it wasn't anything worse.
Are we talking the black Marineland Stealth heaters? I had one of those go out on me too

[ErikH]

WHEW :)

[ErikH]

Hey weren't y'all at the house when my breaker tripped? :p

[txav8r]

:whew::whew::whew:

[allan]

wow, I hate walking near the tank and causing a splash.

[RayAllen]

Hey weren't y'all at the house when my breaker tripped? :p

yes, we were.

[RayAllen]

Wow. Glad it wasn't anything worse.
Are we talking the black Marineland Stealth heaters? I had one of those go out on me too

Yes we are talking about the same heaters.

[RayAllen]

On a positive notes the USPS guy just dropped off my new Metal Halides. This makes my day much better.

[Scream311]

Dang close call. Only 5 gallons it Could have been worse.

I fear an electrical fire the most. Water can be cleaned up but a fire Eeek don't even wanna think about it.

I should check my tanks after the rock work I did after y'all left Sunday lol

[RayAllen]

if the correct precautions were taken, I wouldnt have lost any water in the power outage. To little holes in each return nozzel is all it takes to fix it. Doing that tonight, along with firing up these lights to make sure all is functional. Also need to plumb my RO/DI. Busy bee...

[StevenSeas]

Wow Ray that is unfortunate. I too have lost faith in the stealth heaters after in 1 week at work I had had 3 different ones in different tanks go bad and shock the crap outta my arm. Granted these were the older models but still I wont use a new one. Luckily your breaker tripped and prevented shocking your fish and corals.

[Scream311]

Lol sounds like it bro.

Hope those nearly new 10K DE bulbs work out for you

[RayAllen]

Lol sounds like it bro.

Hope those nearly new 10K DE bulbs work out for you

They will work out great bro, they will hold me over nicely untill I can get something more blue.

[RayAllen]

Wow Ray that is unfortunate. I too have lost faith in the stealth heaters after in 1 week at work I had had 3 different ones in different tanks go bad and shock the crap outta my arm. Granted these were the older models but still I wont use a new one. Luckily your breaker tripped and prevented shocking your fish and corals.

You know, now that you say that. Ive had stray voltage in the aquarium for a while and I wasnt sure where it was coming from.

Oddly the only time I would feel it is if I had a cut on my hand. I could put both hands in the water and only feel a slight electric shock on the hand with the cut.

[Bill S]

I just asked my daughter (who works for me) to look out the window and tell me what the brand is on the heater hanging outside. "Steath". It went up in NASTY smoke last week.

[Europhyllia]

If you are in the market to buy a new heater and are looking for recommendations: It's not the newest thing available but I have some old Ebo Jagers and some new Ebo Jagers and they've never let me down > It's a good brand with consistent reliability IMO

[jroescher]

Here's a good thread to read up on about you questions concerning what the circuit can handle. http://www.maast.org/showthread.php?62495-Breaker-Tripping....-(

Maybe now's a good time to consider adding that extra circuit in. The one your using probably powers more than just your tank.

[ShAgMaN]

Cool you were home. I had a similar situation happen (not tank related) were I woke up to smelling electrical burning - smoke detector didnt go off. Luckily I was going into work in the evening (this was around 10am) and cut the power off before the house went up in flames.

Speaking of voltage, my newly installed ATI T5's are shocking me when my arms are in the tank. If I make contact with the fixture (which easily happens) and my arm is in the tank, I get a nice shock - otherwise everything is fine. Appears I have stray voltage or a bad ground. I know electricity follows the path of least resistance, but a ground should protect this right?

[Gseclipse02]

"I smell the outlet them selves, surge protectors, pumps, and lights not them. I then smell my 2 250watt stealth heaters and walla, they shorted out and smelled horrible. Had my wife smell them just to make sure my nose wasnt lieing to me (allergy season and I cant smell much) What the heck caused this, I always thought these were reliable heaters. Ive heard horror stories of heaters shorting out and causing far more damage so I consider myself lucky."


they have a life time replacement just so you know get them swapped out

people dont realize that cords in saltwater corrode pretty quickly this tends to be most people issues i have seen most of the commom brands have issues. the only one i dont see come back really is the jbj's but i dont know if it cause i dont sell as much of them (they cost more_) or there just that good .....

[StevenSeas]

Cool you were home. I had a similar situation happen (not tank related) were I woke up to smelling electrical burning - smoke detector didnt go off. Luckily I was going into work in the evening (this was around 10am) and cut the power off before the house went up in flames.

Speaking of voltage, my newly installed ATI T5's are shocking me when my arms are in the tank. If I make contact with the fixture (which easily happens) and my arm is in the tank, I get a nice shock - otherwise everything is fine. Appears I have stray voltage or a bad ground. I know electricity follows the path of least resistance, but a ground should protect this right?

Sounds like you are grounding yourself on the fixture itself and it isnt what is giving you the shock but rather the outlet from the electricity your getting. When you are touching it your just grounding yourself. You can test this theory by sticking your arm in the tank and touching a piece of metal. Or if you wanna get high tech you can use a volt meter and see if it registers anything. i have had this be the case before and am hoping that your new ATI isnt causing this.

[Europhyllia]

Do you have everything plugged into GFCI outlets, Terry?
Please get some and be safe.

You know I ran the ATI until last week and it never did anything like that too me. It must be the metal grounding thing.

DO NOT add a grounding probe if you do not have everything plugged into GFCI outlets!

[ShAgMaN]

Actually, I have a volt meter and will check it. Pretty sure it's coming from the fixture.

[Europhyllia]

what about the bulbs. Are you sure all of the bulbs are clicked in?

[ShAgMaN]

Do you have everything plugged into GFCI outlets, Terry?
Please get some and be safe.

You know I ran the ATI until last week and it never did anything like that too me. It must be the metal grounding thing.

DO NOT add a grounding probe if you do not have everything plugged into GFCI outlets!

Your totally right and I know better than pluging it into anything other than GFCI - but it's not. A GFCI is in the area and will be used after I test this out. Good to hear you didn't have an issue - prolly just a bad ground.

[ShAgMaN]

Definitely not the ground. Plugged into my GFCI with same results.

Sorry, not trying to hijack your thread Ray.

[DarkHorseMBA]

And that is why I don't have a heater in my tank. From what I've read it not a question of IF a heater goes bad but WHEN a heater goes bad. In the winter my tank hits a low of 74, I'd rather risk that than cooking my fish something worse.

Glad it all worked out for you.

[neogenix]

Have you got some water bugs? And, a grounding probe? I could be that your grounding probe bust something tooo, if you had one?

[ShAgMaN]

Just checked and it's not the heater, and I don't have a grounding probe. Pretty sure now it's stray current from the fixture - which doesnt mess with my tank - just me.

[Europhyllia]

Wow. That stinks. I even had my parents mail me the spare screw from Germany directly from ATI so that I could handover a 100% complete fixture in perfect working condition to you. :(

What could have happened? What makes a fixture start leaking current? How can it be fixed? Could something have pulled lose in transit? The 60" fixture is so big with all the cables in the extra bag maybe something got dropped or pulled out?
I've never seen them mounted into a canopy since they have the hanging kit. Could that influence anything?

You need to get it fixed somehow, Terry. I am worried you could seriously get hurt.

I am surprised it doesn't trip the GFCI if there is leakage.

I tried to understand the current leakage issue further but am still clueless. One thing I did find was this in regards to a fixture that tripped the GFCI:

Prior to my grounding the fixture I called my supply house and asked if they had seen this problem before. Their response was that it sounded like a grounding problem. It wasn't until I pulled the fixture down from the ceiling that I realized that the EGC was not bonded to the fixture. Once I connected the EGC the fixture worked fine.

I'm not saying that ALL fluorescent fixtures have to be grounded in order to work but the fact is that ALL FIXTURES SHOULD BE GROUNDED VIA THE EGC.


Sadly I have no idea what a EGC is. I hope you do?

And I am sure you already tried the obvious and also unplugged the moonlights, right? I could see something on the moonlights corroding or pulling out since their wires are way more exposed than the ATI.

[RayAllen]

Definitely not the ground. Plugged into my GFCI with same results.

Sorry, not trying to hijack your thread Ray.

No biggie, its a related subject. Id rather my tank loose power and flood a little rather being electricuted.