What has Shorted/ Caught Fire in Your Tank?

[happyhourhero]

Please vote in poll for items that have either caught fire or shorted or leaked stray voltage into your tank. If this is happened to you in any way, please write a post explaining what happened and the brand of the equipment that failed.

 

[Bouncingsoul39]

Can we add nothing as an option?

 

[Crabs McJones]

Had a glass heater when I first started out. And for whatever reason the glass cracked ( it was in a chamber that the water level never changed ) luckily I caught it right away. Now I have a titanium heater with an external remote probe controller.

 

[happyhourhero]

Can we add nothing as an option?

I thought about it but ultimately assume more have not had fires or shorts than those that had and I was really only interested in seeing what items are particularly dicey.

 

[aabjones888]

I had a heater malfunction and go bad in a fresh batch of saltwater I mixed up for a water change. It made the water smell real bad like a burnt smell. So no more cheap heathers for me.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Never a fire.

However, my skimmer pump (piece-o-crap Atman), which was plugged into an outlet controlled by a float switch in the skimmate container, crapped out and fried the float switch as well as the outlet in the Reefkeeper energy bar.....a purple/black goop was coming out of the energy bar and now that outlet was fried.

 

[davehead86]

My dads tank had a powerstrip and it was on the floor under where his BioWheel Power Filter was located. Eventually it just got too much salt residue and started melting in the middle of the day. Thankfully we were all home sitting there around the TV otherwise it would have burned down the house.

I learned a lesson from that. All my powerstrips are away from splash and separated as much from the water areas as possible.

 

[Crabs McJones]

Never a fire.

However, my skimmer pump (piece-o-crap Atman), which was plugged into an outlet controlled by a float switch in the skimmate container, crapped out and fried the float switch as well as the outlet in the Reefkeeper energy bar.....a purple/black goop was coming out of the energy bar and now that outlet was fried.

Yikes!

 

[AlexG]

I have had some pump seals go bad in the past when I worked in a LFS that resulted in some pretty good jolts of electricity. A tank overflow on a controller almost started a fire at my house once and without thinking I tried to move it out of the water and got a nasty shock. I am sure there will be some heater nightmare stories that popup on this thread which is why am no longer using electrical heaters. When I started my current build I mounted all of my receptacles above the tanks on the wall or ceiling with GFCI & AFCI protection. This should provide some good protection against electrical device failures while minimizing the risk of spills on electrical devices.

 

[jd371]

Nothing. Came close once when I was working on the tank and splashed some water on the power strip near the tank. The GFCI tripped and disaster was avoided.

 

[Shannon Harlan]

I had cheapo power heas get stray voltage luckily it was just used for making water, woke me up for sure!

 

[SashimiTurtle]

I'll have to find pictures, but I was using one of those 5ft extension cords with the three outlets on the end sold as Christmas tree accessories on a QT tank. I had it on a circuit breaker power bar rated at 10A on that particular circuit, and only had a small air pump and a 5-10g HOB filter. Both combined were not capable of pulling more than about 4 amps. Shortly after getting everything set up, I heard a beeping noise from my power bar letting me know the breaker had tripped. When I got in the room I smelled burnt plastic and the red extension cord was now black around the outlets. The the socket connections evidently had a poor connection, and overheated and arced out burning half the metal off of the air pumps plug. Lesson learned, don't use cheap power cords. If that was under a live Christmas tree, I wouldn't have a house.


Photos are on an old phone...

 

[5altkreep]

Many years ago i was using a cheap power strip on a 55g freshwater tank.
Being an electrician at the time, i should have known better. One outlet on the strip got hot, eventually started a small fire. Luckily i came home just as it started, and avoided a major disaster. It left black streaks up the walls and ruined the carpet. Theres always a risk, but i will never use el cheapo strips for anything!

 

[Beardo]

Had a cheap power supply for my DIY LED fixture go up in smoke. I was sitting in the room so caught it as soon as the light went out. Was the second time the power supply failed, though first time wasn't so dramatic. Didn't bother to exchange it after the second failure and replaced it with a nice Mean Well power supply.
Moral of the story: don't use cheap electrical components.

 

[Radman73]

I had a couple of Jabao power heads get fried. The power strip they were plugged into had been knocked down to the floor at some point, almost certainly by me, and I didn't notice. I walked into the house one afternoon and heard a funny sound, looked over and smoke was billowing up from between the tank and the wall. Thankfully simply unplugging everything worked and disaster was averted. Multiple lessons learned, including the importance of GFCI.

New house and a couple of dedicated GFCI circuits just for the tank.

 

[Captmcfly]

Heater in a old fresh water tank blistered and fried all my fish it was also a cheap petco heater

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

No fire but power strips!

 

[SDReefer]

This is so weird considering that last night was the first time that my greenhouse tripped the GFCI. I think that moisture built up and caused the power strip to trip, so I opened up all the windows and cleaned off the power strip. Thank God for GFCI!

 

[gioNVA]

I had a JBJ ato almost catch fire. The controller for it was in the cabinet and I guess moisture got in it or around the plugs somehow. Good thing I was home and sitting in front of the tank when smoke started coming out of it.

 

[swensos]

My Apex powerstrip had a short while I was at Reefapalooza. I came home to everything off (except the pumps, which are on a separate GFCI strip) and a slight electrical smell in the air. Luckily, the Apex powerstrip turned itself off (and kept turning itself off even after I kept trying to force it back on) and there was no fire or damage thanks to whatever safety features it has inside. The GFCI it's connected to didn't even trip. Apex was quick to respond, had me send it in and they repaired it. I was still able to use the brain and monitor everything on the dashboard while I was without it.