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baker.shawn

slight disaster yesterday

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First off sorry there are no pics, but i was a little busy freaking out

Yesterday morning I came down the stairs put on pot of coffee and went to see the tank, on my way there I smelt burnt, as I approached I realized the tank and no power and there was a puddle around my stand!!

I quickly grabbed towels to dry the laminate floor and shut off the power, I checked the temp of the tank it read 74.3. once I dried up the floor around the tank I had to dry the floor under the tank, this involved draining and removing my sump before I could access underneath the stand.

Once that was taken care of my attention turned to the tank. Heaters were put in the display and my vortech was turned on, As I started inspecting everything, I noticed a completely fried power bad totally charred on the inside I assume that was the culprit…but I still have no idea how the water ended up on the floor or the power bar

Everything was returned to the sump including the water; I used a new power bar and made sure to mount it up off the base of my stand and that was the end of my little disaster, everything is looking okay today, I’m very happy, the floor is…okay slightly damage but it could have been much much worse,most mornign i dont look at the tank, im just happy the house didn’t catch fire.

I assume the power bar failure was due to moisture or maybe the water that somehow got out of the tank…but that’s the thing, I have absoloutly no clue how about 2 gallons got on the floor, maybe my skimmer overflowed…but it should of just flowed back in to the sump :/.. we have a mystery

regardless of the cause of the water spill. powerbars should ALWAYS be mounted somewhere far away from the path of water incase of a spill or leak, and drip loops should be used... i learnt the hard way

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Updated 01-13-2012 at 01:30 PM by baker.shawn

Categories
Tank Entry , ‎ Electrical

Comments

  1. Midnight's Avatar
    Sorry to hear about the hectic morning, on Friday the 13th anything goes I guess. Glad everything is ok though.
  2. melev's Avatar
    Excellent advice, Shawn. Sometimes these power strips fail due to age and salt creep. It could have been a surge from the heater that zapped it perhaps. Did any of the plugs look cooked, or was it not possible to tell?
  3. baker.shawn's Avatar
    none of the plugs were in too rough of shape however all the prongs had black stuff on them to some degree, the back of the powerbar was really melted though