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Thanks for the clarification. What's your thoughts on having/not having a grounding probe attached to an aquarium ?The bird on a wire analogy doesn't apply in reef tanks. The reason a bird isn't shocked is because the air that surrounds it is an insulator.
Saltwater is much more conductive than the fish itself. Even with a path to ground, such as is provided by a ground probe, the vast majority of current will flow around a fish anyway. This is why you can't electrofish in saltwater, only fresh water. It's too difficult to shock a fish even with equipment specifically designed to do so.
It is very unlikely for electrical shock to kill a marine fish. Heating caused by, or toxins released by a failed electrical component are a more likely cause if there is an associated electrical fault.
OMG this brings back memories. I got up one morning to see water on the floor and half the tank was empty. My clown fish were on the floor and I did not notice the stripe was laying on the floor and went to pick up the clowns and touched them and the current went right through me and I quickly dropped the clown. The clown was not injured at all. I quickly put water in a 20 gallon and switched all my fish over to that. I then drained out the rest of the water in the 100 gallon and was able to reseal it and then fill it back up and put everything back. I have learned from this to have wires and cords off the floor and protected.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?
I won't run my system without a ground probe/GFCI combination. I also won't run my system on just one GFCI. Ideally, I would have 1/2 my power heads, 1 return pump, and 1 heater on each GFCI. This will definitely be how I set up my next system. Since I only have 1 return pump on my current tank, I keep my power heads on a separate GFCI from my return pump. This way a single GFCI trip won't cause me to lose all flow.Thanks for the clarification. What's your thoughts on having/not having a grounding probe attached to an aquarium ?
You don't want to unplug first. You want to go hit the breaker box switch!Had a aquaclear heater that turned black and had a hole melt in the glass (underwater) and heated my tank up to 96f all while I was at school. When I got home my tank looked like an oil slick smelled awful (chemical smell) and everything was dead. Stuck my hand in to pull that heater out and nearly passed out from the shock it gave me (unplug first I'm a dummy!) That was back in 2006 and I didn't have much livestock in the tank but it was a harsh introduction to the hobby. I switched to jagers and haven't looked back at least when they crap out they don't melt.
Drop that linkAfter reading these stories I think I’m just going to get into the habit of always wearing rubber gloves when working with anything in my tank. It would have the added benefit of avoiding contaminating my water with whatever is on my skin, and would also protect me from M. marinum infections, palytoxin poisoning, etc. Just ordered some elbow-length ones for deep jobs.