Well my tank almost killed me last night. First I'll start off by saying when I first had a dedicated breaker and outlets run to my fish room months ago. I specifically asked the electrician to install a GFCI/AFCI breaker so I didn't have to use multiple GFCI/AFCI outlets. There must of been some sort of miscommunication obviously because he just out a regular breaker in or I wouldn't be on here talking about it.
Well last night I was putting the finishing the final touches on a new isolated tank I had installed in the fish room for nudibranch breeding. The last step was taking one of the 200W Aqeon Pro heaters out of my RO/DI holding drum and putting it in the new tank. Well unknown to me and unseen to the eye the gasket where the cord goes into the heater had become bad, so once I plugged it in I had 2.27 amps running ungrounded in the new tank. The reason I know the amps being drawn is because that's what my Archon controller told me it was drawing. Now that I look back on it I should have tested the water with a multimeter to be safe but at this point I thought I had the proper breaker installed.
In the time between me plugging the heater in and give the tank a final look over. The air stone in the tank had become dislodged and was floating at the surface. So not thinking anything about the heater the moment I stuck my hand in the water considering ohm's law I had to of had well over 1 amp running threw my body. For those of you that don't know much about electricity 1 amp + stops your heart not mentioning all the other nasty things that type of power does like burning internal organs, bursting veins, stopping breathing etc.... Back to my story my hand is in the water and instantly I lose all control of my body. I straightened up flatter then a board. It must have looked like I got hit by a police tazer gun. Luckily I was leaning away from the tank, so when I lost control I was thrown through an open adjacent door and hit the ground faster the a sack of bricks.
The only reason I believe I'm still alive today or not in a hospital bed getting skin graphs needing new organs, is due to the fact that I had wet socks on wet carpet. This gave the electricity a path to follow which prevented it from doing severe damage elsewhere. Ok if you have gotten this far reading and still thinking this can't happen to me well I didn't come out of this without some wounds. Here's a picture for thought.
This is the aftermath and I'm lucky to have only this. After I left the ground the electricity it made its way up my arm towards my watch and stopped at my bicep when my hand finally left the water. Left a nasty electrical burn.
Moral of the story....make sure for certain you have a GFCI breaker or outlet that your aquariums are plugged into it may save your life someday!! I'm certainly lucky to still have mine. Think about it this way without a GFCI safety in place your putting your life in the hands of that $10-$100 heater you bought.[/Had an Aqueon 500 power head do the same thing to me it had been damaged when tube came of an Instant Ocean Protein skimmer and shot water on my coralife power strip. Had noticed a blue hippo tang about 2" insize getting what appeared to be lateral line and had a disformed tail that wasn't like that when I bought him. Had put my hand in the tank to move a rock and got zapped. Figured out where the source was cut the plug off the power head and replaced with a hospital grade plug. Only use that power head to mix salt with now. Blue Hippo recovering nicely tail is the only sign shaped like a V with a thumbs up all the coloration is back and he is real healthy and active.
I have had heaters crack just from a slight tap when moving something in the tank. Quickly un plugged and removed to trash. I do not use heaters any more for that reason. When testing the power head with it in the sink had an arc from outlet when pugging it in burn a hole in my index finger about the size of a pencil lead.
