A Close Call

[Tomoko Schum]

Hi y'all,

A near disaster averted.

When I went over to my 120 this morning, nothing was on :eek2:
After a quick check, I found that my GFI somehow turned off the power to the tank. I don't know what caused it to trip. Whatever the cause was I probably would never know. It must have happened last night since all the fish looked really stressed. My clownfish pair was not together. I could not find the male for awhile, but he was hanging high up near the surface at the overflow. The female almost got sucked up to my Koralia 4 when I turned the power on. All the other fish are hiding, but all the cryptic things such as an acro crab and nassarius snails were out on the surface. Yikes.

In any event, I put about two cups of GAC into the sump and made sure that the skimmer is working well.

Clownfish pair is now back into their frogspawn and I see some damsel and cardinal hiding among rocks and SPS's.

I still don't know if there is any damage done to the other livestock. Please keep your fingers crossed for me.

Tomoko

 

[8BALL_99]

OMG Tomoko you run your entire tank of a single GFCI.. Thats a HUGE no no. I'm glad you caught it quick enough. Good thing your live stock looks to be doing better. My best advice is to split your pumps up on two GFCI circuits.. IE your Return and skimmer on one and your Power heads on the the other.. I'd run your MH lights with the Power heads since MH likes to trip GFCI's at random. IMO The return and skimmer are the most important.. So try to keep them on circuits with less stuff just to cut down on the odd of a short.

YIkes close one

 

[Tomoko Schum]

How do you install two GFI's on one circuit? My GFI outlet on the wall covers all outlets downstream to it in the room. If this GFI trips, all outlets downstream to it would not work, either. To complicate the matter, the upper receptacle is switched. If I get the type of GFI that mounts on the panel in the garage, wouldn't it be the same deal? Doesn't it work on just the circuit it is mounted on?

Tomoko

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Never mind my question. I forgot that hot and neutral wires can be connected to the line side and not the load side of the GFI unit so as not to affect the other outlets. I can have two GFI's on one circuit that way. The only problem is that the GFI is behind the tank and I don't have enough room to work on it unless I move the 120

I hope that my mistake will help other people, though.

Tomoko

 

[8BALL_99]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13370700#post13370700 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Tomoko Schum
Never mind my question. I forgot that hot and neutral wires can be connected to the line side and not the load side of the GFI unit so as not to affect the other outlets. I can have two GFI's on one circuit that way. The only problem is that the GFI is behind the tank and I don't have enough room to work on it unless I move the 120

I hope that my mistake will help other people, though.

Tomoko

Exactly right Tomoko. You can have as many GFCI's on one circuit as you want. Just when you install them don't feed the next one inline from the protected side of the GFCI' Feed them from the line in side. A lot of people make the same mistake and assume they need to run 2 or 3 circuits just to have multiable GFCI's.

That stinks you can't get to it to change it. Yeah you would have been much better off not feeding the rest of the outlets from the single GFCI.. Another small note is its worth while to leave access to them if you can. They do and can go bad.. Just something to keep in mind when you set up your 180..

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Yeah, I'm trying to use the inaccessibility to GFI as my justification for a 180 on the other wall.... I know Reilly is not keen on moving 120 just to rewire the GFI, either. He is willing to let me set up a 180, but I need to come up with a good looking design for the wall unit for the wall to incorporate my tank. It's kinda silly to think about a room addition in the back just so I can have a fish room, isn't it?

Tomoko

 

[8BALL_99]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13371064#post13371064 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Tomoko Schum
It's kinda silly to think about a room addition in the back just so I can have a fish room, isn't it?

Tomoko

LoL your really asking the wrong guy that question..

I sold my pool table, turned my game room into a bedroom then moved my oldest son upstairs to have a fish room with an Equipment room. We arent' even talking about cutting a hole in the wall and building a room in the garage.. Or pulling up all the carpet to tile the room. But that said, the space you already have isn't bad. It should work for a 180 pretty easy. I wouldn't go much bigger though. Just cause you wouldn't want to put to much moisture into that room. Since it doesn't have a door and just a large cased opening that helps a lot. But still with it on the front of the house Vent fans or adding more AC ect are more of an issue. I dont' see you having a problem though. Its also an outside wall so the floor supports shouldn't be and issue.

Will

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Thanks, Will. I need to seriously look at some design options. As you pointed out, it's the front room and I would like it to look pretty. I need the tank and the cabinets to be functional, too. I wish I could build an equipment room behind, but cutting an opening in the exterior brick wall would not be very practical, haha.

Tomoko

 

[mltmtascp]

I think I would build a room that way you could put all of you equipment, tanks, breeding tank and etc.... in one room. Tell Reilly that I said you need your own hobby room. LOL

Monica

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Unfortunately I have two empty rooms upstairs, but I don't want to put them up there....

By the way, I am afraid that I lost leopard wrasse, red female mandarin, all my blue eye cardinals (except for one) and orange stripe cardinals. All the corals and a big crocea came through the ordeal unscathed, though.

Tomoko

 

[8BALL_99]

Wow that Stinks Tomoko. Yeah it doesn't take long for fish to really get stressed in a Reef tank.. I'm sure you remember a few years back when we lost our power for like 16 hours.. Only took about 4 hours for fish to all start going to the surface of the water.

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Yep, I remember your misfortune very well. It's amazing how fast things can happen.

I have turned off my pumps in the morning to feed my fish and forgotten to turn them back on many times in the past. Fish and corals were all fine despite the metal halide lamps heating up the water when I came home in the late afternoon (8 hours later). So I did not really expect this much heavy loss.

All my fish were obviously protected by photosynthetic organisms and macroalgae during the day with all the oxygen produced through photosynthesis (or at least the photosynthetic organisms are not robbing oxygen from fish.) On the other hand, everything in the tank uses oxygen at night and suffer from hypoxia if the water flow is turned off. A real big difference.

I suppose I should get going on setting up the deep cycle marine battery with an inverter on a relay.

Tomoko

 

[8BALL_99]

My ups has came in handy for me.. Infact since 90% of the time our power is only out for a very short time I dont even fire up the generator. Last time we lost power for a few hours I used the Generator to watch a movie and I just let the ups run the tanks haha

 

[Tomoko Schum]

That's an idea, too

Tomoko