My name is Nick. I’ve been on your forum since yesterday.

[Schnizzle]

Thanks to everyone who left good reviews.
It’s good when the reef is thriving. But I would like to talk about failures.
When 4 years ago, due to poor-quality sea water, the whole system collapsed, it was decided to abandon natural sea water in favor of synthetic.
Then I visited the house of my friend with a fantastically beautiful SPS reef based on the Korallen-zucht system.
It was decided that I want such colors for my new reef. A month later, I was on vacation in Germany and drove into Korallenzucht and saw everything with my own eyes.



There, a starter kit for the coral system was purchased. In another store, 2 T5 lamps were purchased, 4 lamps each (a total of 8 lamps).
3 years of failure. Not a single forum and none of my friends could understand the reason.
After placing the test frag, the first 2 to 4 weeks passed perfectly, the polyps were all open, then necrosis suddenly began and within a couple of days a white skeleton remained from the coral.
Tests on my water showed that everything was fine with the water, it means something with the equipment.
One of the friends suggested that this is most likely due to electricity in the water. It was difficult for me to check this, so I replaced all the pumps in my tank, but that did not save me.
I decided to switch to another system - Tropic Marine. But here I was waiting for the same failure with a couple of fragments obtained for the test.
In October last year, when I was ready to give up, my son, knowing how much I love this hobby, invited me to speak with my guru, the owner of one of the shops, the dealer of Korallenzucht, for the last time.
After thinking, he pulled out the ground from his demo aquarium and gave me a try. That helped!!! But RTN began on some of his corals. He urgently had to return the ground probe to his tank.
Later they told me that the source of electricity in the water is a lamps, and that was the only thing that I did not change. By the way, the lamp was Chinese, as I later understood with a weak starting transformer.
If this information helps someone, then I will be glad.

Great find on the electrical source!

I'm very curious as to how the electricity made it from your lamp to the system's water. What path did it take? I'm a marine electrician / electronics technician by trade so I'm naturally curious about these kinds of things.

 

[Fla04gbf]

Great find on the electrical source!

I'm very curious as to how the electricity made it from your lamp to the system's water. What path did it take? I'm a marine electrician / electronics technician by trade so I'm naturally curious about these kinds of things.

dang! It’s always the lamp.... lol. Make or break it’s always the lamp! I didn’t have a electrical failure with my previous tank but was using one of those chinese blackbox. Only after i switched to AI was i able to see significant growth in my corals. I think there are far to many stories telling us that you should never go cheap in the lamp! It’s the heart and soul of the tank! Happy reefing everyone!

 

[Dragon52]

 

[nick0206]

Great find on the electrical source!

I'm very curious as to how the electricity made it from your lamp to the system's water. What path did it take? I'm a marine electrician / electronics technician by trade so I'm naturally curious about these kinds of things.

Honestly, I do not know. I myself tried to find out from those who spoke to me about this from the very beginning, but they told me who to ask for this question, but I have not met with him yet.
I am also an electronic technician by training, I tried to understand myself using the remnants of my knowledge. Perhaps this has something to do with evaporation. My fixture covers my tank at a height of 7". Maybe it’s somehow connected with the condensation of water? Let's think together. I’m 59 and I haven’t been doing electronics for 35 years, I forgot a lot, but Alzheimer isn’t there yet . I would think in the direction of induction and capacity.

 

[Schnizzle]

Honestly, I do not know. I myself tried to find out from those who spoke to me about this from the very beginning, but they told me who to ask for this question, but I have not met with him yet.
I am also an electronic technician by training, I tried to understand myself using the remnants of my knowledge. Perhaps this has something to do with evaporation. My fixture covers my tank at a height of 7". Maybe it’s somehow connected with the condensation of water? Let's think together. I’m 59 and I haven’t been doing electronics for 35 years, I forgot a lot, but Alzheimer isn’t there yet . I would think in the direction of induction and capacity.

Was there anything connecting your light fixture to your tank or was it suspended from the ceiling? I've have seen instances of plastics with high mineral contents displaying very low level capacitance.

 

[Blutspitze]

Welcome to the forums! Thanks so much for sharing the pictures of your tank - everything looks really gorgeous!

 

[nick0206]

Was there anything connecting your light fixture to your tank or was it suspended from the ceiling? I've have seen instances of plastics with high mineral contents displaying very low level capacitance.
[/ QUOTE]
I have a 16 "cube tank (65 cm). There is a wooden frame on top of the cube size, and T5 lamps fixture (without suspension) lay on it.

 

[Fla04gbf]

Was there anything connecting your light fixture to your tank or was it suspended from the ceiling? I've have seen instances of plastics with high mineral contents displaying very low level capacitance.

Hi schnizzle, i think you are right. I have experiencing something like this is my sump. So when you mean low capacitance, would it actually harm the fish and corals?

 

[Schnizzle]

@nick0206 I'm really reaching out with the imagination here but... I wonder if the wood could have possibly absorbed enough moisture from evaporation and condensation to become a conductor. That coupled with moisture or salt creep on the glass COULD create a pathway for current. Maybe?

Hi schnizzle, i think you are right. I have experiencing something like this is my sump. So when you mean low capacitance, would it actually harm the fish and corals?

I don't know exactly what level of current would be detrimental but I would imagine any added electrical current to be a bad thing. Low capacitance just means it is a poor conductor of electricity, though still a conductor.