jestep Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 So I was home at lunch today and I heard a pop in my stand. My glass heater literally exploded, completely exposed the heating coils. My main one went out this weekend and I was using an older glass one until I got a replacement. I'm not sure if the power surge from the shorted heater in the sump caused the outlet to stick shut on my apex, but I had to yank the cord which was really hot because of the current flow, to get the heater to power off. I didn't think electrolysis was common with AC, but the arcing metal was creating a ton of gas underwater. The heater was in the same chamber as my return pumps so I immediately shut off the return and let all of water in the plumbing back-siphon to the sump, so essentially nothing from the sump made it into the tank. The return pump chamber water was completely opaque and brown. I removed all of the water from that chamber and rinsed it with 10 gallons of makeup water. I have it still isolated from the DT and it's been circulating through my reactors which I swapped 2 with GFO for ROX carbon and it's been running through that since noon today. Because the water in the return chamber is lower than the others, very little contaminated water would have been able to make it to the other parts of the sump, and only after it was diluted and rinsed. Does anyone have any input on when I can safely bring the sump back online with the main tank. There are coral and 2 fish in the refugium portion of the sump and last I looked, all seemed to be fine. Coral were still inflated and looking healthy. Fish were fine as well. I don't have a grounding probe, so nothing would have been shocked, just exposed to whatever was in the heater and whatever was generated by arcing metal in the water. Anyway, if anyone has any suggestions or think I should do another large sump water change to be safe, would be appreciated. Just because the coral are showing no sign of stress I'm tempted to put it back online without another huge water change which may just be overkill at this point since almost all of the contaminated water was removed and the rest was highly diluted before it had any chance to get into the rest of the sump. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 Wow! I have nothing to add as you have already done everything I would have mentioned... but that is crazy! That's why I won't stick another glass heater in my system again, titanium all the way! Hopefully all goes well from this point since you caught it so quickly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juiceman Posted December 8, 2015 Share Posted December 8, 2015 If you have isolated the area and it looks clear I'd think you're good. Is there a small frag you don't care about that you could put in that area and double check if it reacts at all? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted December 8, 2015 Author Share Posted December 8, 2015 Wow! I have nothing to add as you have already done everything I would have mentioned... but that is crazy! That's why I won't stick another glass heater in my system again, titanium all the way! Hopefully all goes well from this point since you caught it so quickly. Yeah, my Ti heater finally kicked it. Lucky I still had a backup, but luckier even more that I was home when the glass one blew up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted December 8, 2015 Author Share Posted December 8, 2015 If you have isolated the area and it looks clear I'd think you're good. Is there a small frag you don't care about that you could put in that area and double check if it reacts at all? There's some mushrooms and a few hammer frags in another part of the sump so I'll just go off those. They looked fine last I saw them but will be sure before committing the sump back to the DT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gig 'em @ NDstructible Posted December 9, 2015 Share Posted December 9, 2015 Dang, good thing you were home when this happened. I don't have any advice since I haven't had this exact thing happen before, but since you've rinsed everything out and been running carbon, I would think you should be safe to go about a day after running carbon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluemoon Posted December 9, 2015 Share Posted December 9, 2015 This is a nightmare realized! That's awesome you were able to catch it in time. How audible was the glass popping? Always wondered. I've thought to myself, even if I was home I might not realize what was happening. Probably just pass it off as a pistol shrimp. Wow! I have nothing to add as you have already done everything I would have mentioned... but that is crazy! That's why I won't stick another glass heater in my system again, titanium all the way! Hopefully all goes well from this point since you caught it so quickly. So... about that heater you bought at the sale on Saturday. [emoji54]Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+KimP Posted December 9, 2015 Share Posted December 9, 2015 Wow, that's SO lucky you were home and caught it! I agree it seems like you're safe but I'd keep running the carbon for a while after hooking up the sump again just to be sure. Maybe even throw in a polyfilter if it seems anything doesn't look right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted December 9, 2015 Author Share Posted December 9, 2015 This is a nightmare realized! That's awesome you were able to catch it in time. How audible was the glass popping? Always wondered. I've thought to myself, even if I was home I might not realize what was happening. Probably just pass it off as a pistol shrimp. It was loud enough that I didn't mistake it for some sound the tank would normally make but in a somewhat busy house it could be easy to miss. Sounded something like an empty cardboard box falling on a floor. More of a whoomph than a pop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted December 9, 2015 Author Share Posted December 9, 2015 I put it back online last night. Going to continue with carbon for the next week but I think the rinsing and lucky timing worked. I had purchased a new heater with a gift certificate which hasn't gotten here yet so ended up heating the house up to keep the tank at about 75 degrees until I get the heater in. Little too cozy for me right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted December 9, 2015 Share Posted December 9, 2015 I can let you borrow a 400 watt MH. [emoji6] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jynxgirl Posted December 10, 2015 Share Posted December 10, 2015 I had a pinhole leak in a heater once. I fried alot of fish, but other then the electrocution death, my corals didn't suffer from the incident. I don't know if shattering is quite the same, but the guts of m heater were exposed to my system for a day or so before I became aware of the situation. Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan H Posted December 10, 2015 Share Posted December 10, 2015 GFCI Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted December 10, 2015 Author Share Posted December 10, 2015 GFCI It's on one but there's no grounding probe in the tank, and the heater only had a 2 prong power cord, so the GFCI won't trip unless someone sticks their hand in the tank and grounds it. I'm always on the fence on the grounding probe / GFCI setup because it's a good way to to kill a tank if something shorts and nobody is there to get the tank running again. This was a bit of an exception since it was going to pollute everything, but normally, shorted equipment won't actually cause current flow in the tank, so the risk is more to the aquarium keeper and not to the coral or fish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan H Posted December 10, 2015 Share Posted December 10, 2015 That's unfortunate. I had a heater shatter the glass and it instantly tripped the GFCI. It was only a 2 prong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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