Tank Crash

[cshoneyman]

I come home to the worst fear of any aquarist today. I was on business trip and had someone come over everyday at 10 AM to top off sump dose 2 part and feed the fish. This morning I got a call that the tank was not running and had to work with them to get the pump running. After flying from Canada to home I arrived to realize that I lost all of my fish except for a few clowns. Corals are bleached and my zoa/pally collection are closed up tight.

When I felt it could not get any worse I found the breaker had tripped that fed the tank and it could not be reset. I went around and unplugged everything that happened to be plugged into that circuit. Working by flashlight I found that the root cause was an electrical fire in the wall that burned itself out inside the wall. The paint is blistered off of the wall and off color.

I am hoping for the best and that a majority of my coral pulls through. I will be talking with the insurance company in the morning to deal with the fire and the hardwood floors that are warped from the 20 to 30 gallons of water that I have yet to figure out how it got on the floor.

Wish me the best.......

 

[fullmonti]

Your right, that hast to be the worst fear of any aquarist! I can only hope I never know what that feels like. Hopefully what's left will pull through!

 

[agent462]

Sorry to hear but you're lucky at the same time because your house didn't burn down. Hopefully a majority of the coral can make it. **crosses fingers**

 

[bamachamp92]

Sorry to hear that, let us know if there is anything we can do.

 

[revsgirl]

So sorry to hear that! Keep us posted..

 

[Aqua Amie]

So Sorry to hear! We have been there, done that....so frustrating trying to tell someone that has no idea what to do except feed the fish, what to look for to stop your tank from overflowing and figure out why the fishies are dead, over the phone, a few states away.....hope everything comes through for you! Wish we were closer! We'd be there to help however possible! And yes, Praise the Lord the house did not burn....nightmare number #1 I guess....but this is right up there....keep us posted! I for one would love to hear that everything pulled through for you!

 

[hwntunda]

oh no, sorry to hear! how much wattage were you running on the breaker?sounds like it might have been overloaded... typically a household breaker can handle up to about 1900 watts per breaker and doesnt matter the amp of the breaker...so we just try to keep dedicated circuits on seperate breakers to keep the draw down on the circuits...hopefully a member that has more experience on electrical could jump in to elaborate a bit more and correct me if stated something wrong. once again sorry on the losses!

 

[cshoneyman]

oh no, sorry to hear! how much wattage were you running on the breaker?sounds like it might have been overloaded... typically a household breaker can handle up to about 1900 watts per breaker and doesnt matter the amp of the breaker...so we just try to keep dedicated circuits on seperate breakers to keep the draw down on the circuits...hopefully a member that has more experience on electrical could jump in to elaborate a bit more and correct me if stated something wrong. once again sorry on the losses!

The tank has two dedicated circuits. One for the chiller and the other for lighting. The main circulation pump was plugged into a third circuit that burned along with a PC so I would estimate less then a total of 1000 watts on this circuit. The rest of the necessary items are spread across the 2 dedicated circuits. Circuit 1 (chiller) ~ 15 amps on a 20 amp circuit Circuit 2 (Lighting / misc ) ` 12 amps on a 20 amp circuit. However I have three circuits that can no longer be reset and the thinking is that they travel a common path and may have all been damaged by this event. I have an electrical background but at this time I am limited in the amount of inspection I can do due to waiting for the insurance company to decide a path forward. My neighbor which is a licensed electrician thinks that the wire in the wall may have been damaged in the past and that its time had come to fail. He also mentioned that it is not uncommon for other breakers to trip if a direct short were to develop on the same phase?. Based on the resistance measurements he took off of the tripped breakers that would not reset, they are all shorted together. Once the insurance company comes to view the damage we will remove the sheetrock and see what the damage looks like.

As for an update Corals are looking good for what they have been through. Most of the zoas and pallies are opening back up now and all but one of the monti caps are looking good. I have my fingers crossed for the last few to pull through. My breeding pair of clowns and neon cleaner gobies pulled through. The majority of what was lost were frags that were cut for the CRC frag swap and my collection of tangs.

I have decided to put in a reef keeper elite with net access on a UPS. My hope is that I can set the unit up to send an alarm to my blackberry so I am able to respond faster to the problems that arise when I am out of town. A second circulation pump will be added with a completely isolated power source so if the primary goes down the seconday will keep some of the water moving. The powerheads are going to be isolated from the circulation pumps to prevent them going down with the circulation pump as well. I can see some oversights that I made in my setup but I never thought that I would loose all three circuits that go to the tank at one time. Had even one of them stayed hot a few powerheads would have stayed running.

Thanks for the support and you are all right the house is still standing and in the big picture the damage is minimal and can be repaired quickly.

 

[ironman]

Just got home from out of town and glad I didnt come home to that. It is my fear everytime i leave town! Sorry to hear it for you. Let me know how the insurance handles this im interested. I have sat down with my agent and discussed similiar scenarios and I basically concluded insurance will cover nothing living. I always thought I could maybe claim the corals were just expensive decorations! LOL!
Good luck Chris