Something to be aware of!!!!!

[firefightered]

Woke up yesturday morning and was going to feed the fish. Got close to the tank and noticed fish were acting kinda funny. Noticed temp was 65 deg. Got alittle closer to the tank and the hair on my arm was standing up from the static electricity. Alarms went off in my head telling me that something was wrong. I grabbed my volt meter and checked the tank. 36.5 volts running through my tank..... Started unplugging things and checking volts as I went. Unplugged the heater first since the temp was low. Eliminated 26 volts right off the bat. Unplugged one of the power heads. Another 5.5 volts gone. Finally got to the return pump and found the remaining 5 volts. I had just checked the tank a week before because I read someones post about there electrical problem and it reminded me to check mine again. It read zero. I had 2 maxi jet 1200s and a heater go out in a week. And have nothing to replace them untill tomorrow eccept a HOB filter with a heater built into it. Ive got the temp back up and am using my other maxi jet as a return instead of a power head. Is this a common problem with maxi jets?

 

[btkrausen]

Its common with heaters, and common with maxijets. I just popped my breaker a few weeks ago due to a bad MJ 1200. This is what pushed me to move towards using a manifold instead of pumps to feed my reactors.

I keep a grounding probe hooked up in my sump for this reason.

 

[miyags]

Same here with maxijets1200. They should make them with a ground. My heater and my powerheads don't even come with a grounded plug. Putting electrical components in water with no ground, nice!!!

 

[gooch Verified Sponsor]

I had issues like this cycling rock for a friend. I was playing in the water moving things around no problem. He would touch the water and get shocked. My shoes kept me from getting shocked. Bad pump. One time a heater broke in my sump. That looked really wicked until I could get the power off. It never tripped the gfi. I almost burned my house down another time when a faulty gfi failed to trip. We actually saw flames coming from the gfi outlet. I had about 20 firemen in the house looking for fire ready to tear down walls. I wasn't happy but my wife enjoyed all the firemen. You should of seen how fast her single friend got to our house....lol.

 

[nixer]

GFIs will only trip if there is a difference between legs for the line. if the voltage is equal between the 2 legs then sir you have just became a fancy light bulb.

 

[tangboy]

I had a similar situation with a Stealth heater in my BC 8 at school. Smelled something funny coming back from PE, it wasn't my stinky teenage boys, smelled electrical. Noticed all the coral in the BC were slimming horribly and lifted the top off. There was my heater just shocking the crap out of everything! Lost a fish and 95% of my corals that way :(

 

[firefightered]

Gooch.... I've been a firefighter for 22 years and know what you mean about them wanting to destroy walls and such to find the fire. We are actually suppose to if we don't have a IR camera or something to deam the situation safe. If we leave and your house burns it could become our fault. As for the single friend... It's only because she probably has never dated a firefighter. It takes a strong woman to be married to one of us. We are never home and have trouble sleeping with all the bad things we have to see.

As for a ground. If I were to put a grounding probe in my refuge and/or DT, will that stop any ele. current from entering my tank? I already have GFI and surge protectors everywhere.....`

 

[btkrausen]

Yeah, that should at least ground out any little current that is in your sump, and then I'd guess it would probably trip your break if its something big, like a heater and two maxijets :)

 

[firefightered]

My GFI nor surge protector tripped. Not enough feed back I guess. But I can tell you that my fish where givin me feed back " Get this @##$%^^ electricity out of my home!!!!!!"

 

[btkrausen]

Mine tripped when just a maxijet went bad. However, it could have been in addition to everything else going, pushing it over 20A.

 

[jabberkaycee]

Its common with heaters, and common with maxijets. I just popped my breaker a few weeks ago due to a bad MJ 1200. This is what pushed me to move towards using a manifold instead of pumps to feed my reactors.

I keep a grounding probe hooked up in my sump for this reason.

Tell me more. I have a mj in my sump going to my carbon/gfo dual reactor. How does a manifold work??? My return pump is external so I'm not as concerned about it. Just purchasaed a grounding probe from Phin so I'll have it in the sump by the end of the week. My husband installed a gfo outlet when I first set up thet tank so I"m good there.

 

[btkrausen]

Tell me more. I have a mj in my sump going to my carbon/gfo dual reactor. How does a manifold work??? My return pump is external so I'm not as concerned about it. Just purchasaed a grounding probe from Phin so I'll have it in the sump by the end of the week. My husband installed a gfo outlet when I first set up thet tank so I"m good there.

A manifold is basically a split off of the water from the return pump to run your other reactors. I split my water two ways coming out of the return, one to the display, and then one that goes back into the sump, since my pump is too powerful for my tank. So I adjust the water going into the display and send the rest back to the sump. Then I split the water going into the sump with Ts, and then a ball valve, and then into my reactor.That way you have less electricity use, less plug ins, fewer pumps to buy and worry about. In your case with the external pump, you'd have no pumps actually in the water...except for a skimmer if you run one.

 

[BattlesReef]

My brother in-law had this happen to his tank. IMO for the money a grounding probe is money well spent. They can save you from more trouble than I wish to imagine. I once knew a guy that lost upwards of $10,000 from a heater shorting out in his 1000G total volume set-up.

 

[Michael7979]

I know there are different opinions about using grounding probes.
But I use one. Just makes me feel better, I guess.
Also have GFI's.

 

[btkrausen]

Yeah, it makes me feel better with one in my tank. I've heard that stray electric in the tank can cause lateral line disease in fish.

 

[firefightered]

I know if I were to loose all my fish and corals again (episode with a pest control guy) I would have to get out of the hobby. It is just tooooo $$$$$$$ to start all over again.

FYI........ Marineland has a recall on thier heaters. It's the Stealth pro models 100,200 &300 submergable heaters. Just so happens to be the one I had. See the thread in dry goods...

 

[btkrausen]

I agree. If I were to lose everything right now, it would be super hard ton try to rebuild. I think I'd have to start over with a new tank and completely build. Don't want to think about that though, haha

 

[newreefer2]

Same here with maxijets1200. They should make them with a ground. My heater and my powerheads don't even come with a grounded plug. Putting electrical components in water with no ground, nice!!!

I think they do that because dead people can't complain

 

[gweston]

The barrel I was using to cycle liverock in gave me one heck of a jolt. I thought it was the heater, it wasn't. It was the Koralia 2 powerhead. I put a some snails in there to keep things clean after it had cycled and I was waiting to get the tank/stand in place. I wondered why a few of them died rather suddenly. Answered my own question. Oops. Apparently the voltage leak started small, and progressively got worse over a couple weeks.

+1 for putting grounding probes in the display and in the sump.

 

[firefightered]

I took the heater back yesturday, Had no problem and even got a bigger heater for just $5.00 more. I checked to see if my tank had any more electrical problems before I left, everything was fine. I took my 12 yr old golfing, replaced the heater and went home. put the heater in my tank waited 15 min. and plugged it in. Out of concern for my critters I went ahead and checked for voltage again. I had 22 volts going through my system again. This time it was my other maxi pro 1200. I called marineland and asked them what was the problem with these maxijets. They told me to send them back to thier comp. and they would fix or replace them at no charge. Marineland has one of the best customer service depts. I've ever delt with. It did cost me to ship them but I will get 3 new power heads out of the deal. They are also suppose to let me know of any other recalls they have or will have in the future. So when/if I get this info I will pass this along to everyone on R2R.