Neon Reefer Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 Last night I was cooking dinner when I hear a distinctive POP and then the sound of water running! I look to the tank and see water pouring out the sump doors. Oh no! The bottom blew out my tank! Right? When I step to the tank to watch the level in the tank fall I am already trying to figure out how to save my livestock. To my amazement the level does not fall and I realize I have a broken hose or blown out manifold under the tank, so I open the doors to turn off the main pump and I instantly hear the crackle and sizzle of electrical arching and then a flame shoots out the door just past my right side for a second or two and then a loud pop and the whole house goes dark. Standing there in front of the tank in the dark it took me a second to figure out what to do. Find a flashlight! Oh yeah unplug the surge protectors from the wall disabling all the equipment. turn the power back on, start picking up the water off the floor...towels...towels... and more towels. As my wife manned the towels I went out to the garage to the circuit panel box to check the breakers. Odd enough none were tripped. I went outside to the main box under the meter and the main breaker had tripped. Flipped it back on and restored power. Back inside we picked up the rest of the water and then I turned the main pump back on very slow speed (glad to have a DC pump) to find where the leak was. No biggie just the line going to a reactor popped off the top of reactor and sprayed water everywhere. Way too much pressure on that line for a carbon reactor. Not sure how I made that mistake on set up but I corrected it and then connected it. Bottom line is all I fried was a couple of timers and an extension cord. But the big question: Why didn't the surge protector trip when the water shorted the extension cord plugged into it? Then why didn't the breaker that controls that 15AMP outlet trip in the garage? Why did it have to wait for the 200AMP breaker at the bucket to trip? Man that was a lot of draw before anything gave. Could have been deadly! I have a black burnt spot in the sump about half dollar size and the extension cord female plug is fused to the timer's male plug. For sure I need to do some more investigation, All suggestions welcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sascha D. Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 WOW! I'm glad that you are okay and weren't hurt. Is it the TLF 150 reactor in your signature? I have had the hose pop off of that reactor as well, but the flow of water shot away from the electrical. I'll never use one again. From what I understand, the surge protector should have tripped if it has that function. The cheap ones do not, so you might want to look up your model. This is definitely a learning experience for everyone if you find out what happened. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 Wow! That's pretty crazy! Glad everything turned out okay! Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gig 'em @ NDstructible Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 Sheeesh, glad every one came out safely from this incident! That could easily have been much worse. It was also a good thing you were home to respond to the incident in a timely fashion. It's a good safety observation and a reminder that our hobby can easily mix water and electricity, which is a very dangerous combination! Hopefully you get everything fixed up and this doesn't happen again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bpb Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 That's some serious ish there. I think my boss would ban aquariums from the house at that point. We do get super careless in the grand scheme of things mixing wires and water. I make it a point to keep anything electrical out of the sump/stand (obviously minus the pumps themselves. Everything goes to an equipment cabinet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neon Reefer Posted June 10, 2015 Author Share Posted June 10, 2015 Yes it was the TLF 150 and ill address the issue w/ a hose clamp. Yes these timers were for my dosing pumps but they will be replaced and removed from the sump. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan H Posted June 10, 2015 Share Posted June 10, 2015 You should consider putting in GFCI outlets if you don't already have them. Those *should* trip when water causes a ground fault like this. Surge protectors aren't for preventing shorts that occur after the device, it's for stopping a surge coming in to the device. It is strange that the outlet breaker didn't trip... You may want to have an electrician check on the breaker. It could be broken. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AbelR1975 Posted June 12, 2015 Share Posted June 12, 2015 +1 Dan Or, if you're able, it would be cheaper to just replace the breaker yourself...just in case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
12_egg_omelette Posted June 12, 2015 Share Posted June 12, 2015 Goodness gracious great balls of fire! Maybe this will cheer you up some. http://i.imgur.com/j4OnwXV.jpg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
12_egg_omelette Posted June 12, 2015 Share Posted June 12, 2015 Goodness gracious great balls of fire! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
something to reef on Posted June 23, 2015 Share Posted June 23, 2015 Wow. Hope you got a gfci installed. I would also have an electrician look at how your subpanel is being grounded and verify that it actually is Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isaac Posted June 23, 2015 Share Posted June 23, 2015 first of all, awesome story telling +100 day saved, +901! walking onto water w/o killing power first (or heavy rubber boots *lol*) -1,000 why wasn't the first reply "GFCI" -1,000,000,000,000,000 for everyone, except Dan. http://amzn.com/B000XU5MEG i'd also replace that 15A breaker, if it didnt trip but the main did. it may very well be faulty. They are not made to last decades like one assumes (i have about 5 spares in my toolbox for this reason). Another thing may be the wiring in your house is well above code (aaahahahaha, like a builder would ever do that), and the main tripped when it simply overheated (that's how they trip, heat). surge protectors protect from.... surges... ie lightning, transformer down the street goes nuts, general voltage spikes above a certain threshold (i think its normally above 125V for 110/120 circuits? im sure packaging/labels will have that), etc. GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter) simply detects when the current is coming back over the common equals the current provided, if it does not, it assumes its going to ground, and trips. More expensive GFCI's actually check the [local] ground too, but that's not always accurate as electricity goes to first ground it hits, not your special plug. Google says, "The ground-fault circuit interrupter, or GFCI, is a fast-acting circuit breaker designed to shut off electric power in the event of a ground-fault within as little as 1/40 of a second. It works by comparing the amount of current going to and returning from equipment along the circuit conductors." get a GFCI, replace your breaker.... maybe some rubber boots. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan H Posted June 23, 2015 Share Posted June 23, 2015 WooHoo! I'm at 0 points! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neon Reefer Posted June 24, 2015 Author Share Posted June 24, 2015 The breaker panel was looked at by electrician and he says all is in working order. No viable explanation why this circuit was not interrupted and the whole house breaker was. Still not happy with the results although he demonstrated that the breaker was working properly. As far as GFCI plug, I used these in the wall during the original tank build. Only problem was that every time we had a storm and the electricity would flash on / off / on then the GFCI breakers would trip and the tank would not run until I reset them. So I removed them when I nearly had a tank crash from an extended period of time when it went without power. I think the best action I took was to remove the multi outlet from inside the stand I was using to power the dosing pumps. This way when and if there is another hose or manifold leak there will be no power for it to mix with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
something to reef on Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 When properly installed and in working condition gfci outlets and breakers should not trip due to a power/service interuption to your house. Anyone running a tank not on gfi is asking for trouble Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isaac Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 I have a UPS between the GFCI and the wall... call me paranoid *lol* gfci's like to trip during brownouts if you have any ballasts... i ran into that on my old tank w/ halides. ballasts dont do well w/ fluctuating voltage, the GFCI might be seeing the differing voltages due to the ballast's startup capacitors being overworked. (i think thats what I found... was 7 yrs ago) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neon Reefer Posted June 29, 2015 Author Share Posted June 29, 2015 I have a UPS between the GFCI and the wall... call me paranoid *lol* gfci's like to trip during brownouts if you have any ballasts... i ran into that on my old tank w/ halides. ballasts dont do well w/ fluctuating voltage, the GFCI might be seeing the differing voltages due to the ballast's startup capacitors being overworked. (i think thats what I found... was 7 yrs ago) Interesting. At the time I was running all T5 + CF. Lots of ballasts. Now I am running only one ballast for some supplemental lighting for the LEDs. Do converters cause this same issue as I am slowly converting to DC on everything except heaters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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