Guarding against electrical shock: What steps do you take?

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Electricity and water don't mix as it is bad for your health! Running an aquarium shouldn't cause us to fear things like electrical shock but we should have a healthy respect for it and take precautions when setting up a tank and working in our tanks. Let's talk about it today!

1. How do you take care to guard against electrical shock or electrical mishaps around your tank?

2. Have you ever been shocked or had an electrical mishap that was aquarium related?

 

[fishguy242]

gcfi's ,decent breaker power strips.ground probes in tanks AND sumps,never barefoot on concrete floor,
watch that salt creep,as seen on power strip above ,will trip breakers ,but will still be burning,
good day to check your equipment...

 

[ZoWhat]

Well Marty, when dealing with 1.21 gigawatts... you always wear protection

 

[WVNed]

Toby as a puppy chewed a cord to a heater. I was doing maintenance and pulled the heater to the other side of the sump putting the exposed wire into the water.

Zap

 

[Justin Swinney]

3 times. All were hydor wavemakers leaking electricity

 

[ScottB]

Standing in a puddle of saltwater, I touched the ON/OFF switch of an old ShopVac with a wet hand. Gave me a nice pop.

 

[BiggestE222]

No thank hit drip looks and all tripling power strips 2 well above sump. Other power connections if table away from aquarium adding a tank top to avoid splashes from wavemakers.

 

[Quietman]

Being lazy with power strips and left one on floor face up..."temporarily". Little splash from tank maintenance and "poof" a nice whiff of the old ozone and plastic burn and there goes two outlets. It was fused power strips so didn't blow any gear or melt, burn or otherwise cause any more damage. So yeah, don't be lazy about cable and power strip management and always buy fused protected power strips.

 

[Richard Severns]

3 times. All were hydor wavemakers leaking electricity

Twice for me, same type

 

[TJ Merrells]

My tank is about 6 months old. Recently started noticing when I put my hand in my sump, if I have any cuts on my hands, get a very sharp pain in the cut. Much sharper pain than that of saltwater in a cut. I'm suspecting I'm having stray voltage into my tank. I just ordered a ground probe and will be installing a gfci outlet. Also will be checking with a volt meter.

What makes me even more suspicious that I do have stray voltage is a believe I've had issues with the bacteria imbalances in my tank. For example I was trying out Aquachar. Alot of people say that it'll float for the first while and after about a week or so it'll populate with bacteria and begin to sink down. I have mine in a mesh bag and weighed down with some rubble rock so it stays submerged. After 6 weeks it would still be able to float which tells me it isn't populating with bacteria. I talked to several people who use this product and all were baffled. Which now leads me to Beleive that possibly stray voltage in my tank is affecting my beneficial bacteria populations

 

[Sunny in Miami]

I really try to make sure my hands are super dry before I unplug or plug anything. I really don't want to see the other parallel just yet .

 

[SauceyReef]

My two favorite hobbies: playing live music and reef tanks. Which one I have been electrocuted worse from? Only God knows... (Actually probably was that mesa boogie stack on the rainy day).

 

[tastyfish]

I got a shock from my mains (240v) voltage CFL refugium light where salt had crept all over it. Thankfully it went down my arm and into the sump vs through my core.

I try to use DC wherever possible in the tank, but the CFL is easily the best light

 

[ppatches24]

Oh the timing. Yesterday 4 of my fished died and a shrimp over night for seemingly no reason.

I really want to hear the stories of finding stray voltage. I tested my tank and am getting .8 volts in the tank. 3 of the other fish are acting and look normal. The mandrin, female clown and Mel wrasse. And corals look to be the same as before.

I'm having a hard time figuring out what could kill a tang, clownfish, 2 firefish and a shrimp over night but the others are fine.

My only thought is stray voltage. How do the fish act when stray voltage is coming in? How fast is the death? It would depend on the amount of voltage right? If it's a slow leak could it stress them out over time and kill them off all at once? I've been able to test the water when the last fire fish was swimming all crazy and there was no voltage at that time.

 

[randalli]

One electrocution and one power failure.
The power failure was a crappy skimmer on my frag tank that tended to spray like a fountain when something was wrong with the air tube. One morning it sprayed water out of the tank and into an outlet that triggered the main fuse. Guess when that happened ... right ... during the Christmas holidays when I was out of town. My girlfriend called me one morning that the electricity was off. Lucky me I was on my way home already and could fix it within 4 hours. No casualties.
The electrocution took place when I switched on the power outlet my water exchange return pump was connected to. Had a dry hand and a wet hand. Guess which hand I used to switch the pump on ... nice zap though. Was wide awake afterwards. Started to dry both hands before switching anything

 

[Billdogg]

In the dark ages, before GFCI was even a thing, I had a powerhead on my reverse flow undergravel filter stop working. It was a MJ1200 as I recall. I unplugged it and took it to the kitchen sink to clean it and see what the problem was.

After cleaning, I put it in a (metal) bowl full of water in the sink and plugged it in to see if it was working. Nope. So I grabbed it to give it a good shake. Next thing I knew I was about 10' away, on the floor leaning against the wall.

I spent the next 45 minutes or so wandering around the house, telling myself "Sure - I'm ok" Should I have gone to the ER? Certainly, but I didn't because that's where I worked and I didn't want my coworkers to discover just how much of an idiot I can be!

That PH went to the trash!

Now, EVERYTHING tank related is connected to one of several GFCI outlets. Never again, TYVM!!!

 

[The_Skrimp]

I’ve definitely had one of those thoughtless “oh no! I forgot to unplug something!” moments and reached for a plug with a wet hand. The jolt of electricity going up my arm was enough to teach me not to do that again.

 

[ReeferMadness01]

Had a cheap box light for my fug. Didn’t realize I was spilling water on it when I changed filter socks. Went to move some chaeto around and it hurt…so the only obvious thing to do was ask the gf to stick her finger in it too. now I’m running a Neptune GRO

 

[diverrad]

I don’t at all. So far I shot across the room 3 times with each shock I gained about a decade of life.

 

[ajcanale]

Multiple times, all due to crappy Hydor Korallia pumps.