Hey all you MORONS! I got spanked-- you could be next.

H.crispa

H.crispa

New member
Hey gang, just your humble V.P. here spreading the word on a Zen Reef tragedy narrowly averted.

I was sitting at my computer and smelled smoke. I investigated. I found FIRE on my electrical connections behind the Zen Reef! I don't mean smouldering. I mean freakin' FIRE! Thank God I was home. I am now in the process of clean up and redesigning my electrical hook ups so this will be as close to impossible to happening again. I took pics. I'll post them later but right now I'm a little busy. The reason for this post is hopefully to wake up snoozers like me and get some proactive stuff going on here. Like I said, I'm a bit busy right now so stay tuned for details later.
 
I will be interested in seeing the pictures. I am sure glad you were there. I had a simular thing happen to me about a month ago. I plugged in my little power jet that is hooked up to the small tank I have for refill, and I got shocked. I quickly unplugged the power jet and then saw smoke. Somehow I got water in my power strip and it did not shut off. I unplugged it and then, as you said, did some redesigning :)
 
Here is how this started:
burn4.jpg

burn3.jpg


Here is what happened next:

I never cemented the upright in my cooling tower to the joint where the fan is. My reasoning was ease of cleaning and the water level would never get that high anyway. This was a miscalculation. When water is added rapidly and spills through the overflow and dumps into the tower at a rapid rate the water level does in fact get that high for a moment. Just long enough for a drop or two of seawater to seep through and drip onto whatever is below. In this case, this was below and you can plainly see the results:
burn2.jpg

burn.jpg

burn5.jpg


I am now redesigning my electrical hook ups in total. The setup will be similar; however, Everything will be outside grade and enclosed in a waterproof box and protected with a splash shield just for good measure.

Well, I'm done with this for now but for those of you who have a similar tangled, cord mess-- fix it now, learn from my mistake.

For those of you who care, I'll post my progress.
 
My wiring is definitely going to be removed from my tank, or above the water level. I cant risk a fire like that... not with little kids in the house. Its something that has scared me since I started pieceing it together. Any wiring I have to have under the tank... if there is any... well, I will have to figure out something crafty.
 
got a weee but of dust build up there lol man glad to here that you were home at the time and got to it in time!!!
 
It must be in the water, the cord to the light on my display in Ironton caught fire this morning when the timers turned it on, lucky that one of my employees decided to come to work EARLY, today and caught it in time. This one wasn't water related, but my home tank was about 2 months ago, when we came home to black soot all over our walls and the smell of smoke, it tripped a breaker, and stopped the burning but it was too late for my hardwood floor and baseboard behind the tank, (at least its behind the tank I told my wife). She said that I shoulda practiced what I preach to my customers, thats what happens when your in a hurry, hence the saying "A plumber always has leaky pipes" I had a six way outlet so charred that you couldn't tell what it was. Spend extra on a GFCI, its well worth the investment!!!
 
Well at least my disaster was only water.... I came home last week to a 1/2 empty 10 gallon tank. I'm pretty sure the one of my cats knocked the power strip off the tower it sits on and it pulled my Fission skimmer to just the right angle where it was pouring water over the side of the refugium across the stand the tank is on and into the floor. fortunatly it was running on to an area rug and it soaked up all the water.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7646949#post7646949 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by fishmon
It must be in the water, the cord to the light on my display in Ironton caught fire this morning when the timers turned it on, lucky that one of my employees decided to come to work EARLY, today and caught it in time.
Click to expand...
:eek2:
For those of you who care, I'll post my progress.
Click to expand...
Please do Jason. I've been in the tangled cord mess before myself but luckily it didn't come back to bite me.
 
I flooded my upstairs while running water into a holding tank for my 120 gal, lol. I started it filling, it usually takes about 2 hours to fill, so I went on to doing whatever it was I was doing, and then I left the house for physical therapy!!! Well, 4 hours later I came home to water all over my upstairs and dripping down to the 1st floor, had to pull up carpet and all. Good news though, I get to have hardwood floors installed now!!!! LOL
Oh, and I am getting a shut off float
 
yeah it was, but I also forgot to mention that it was from my ro/di unit, the way I posted it sounded like I left a hose or something running, LOL.
 
LOL Thats to good that you have your kids put there hand in there first lol lol That how we used to test to see if a spark plug was firing on a lawnmower or somthing just tell some unsspecting person " hey could you hold this for a second!" and we new pretty quick whether or not is was working
 
OK, what the freak is a GFCI??? A "Glorified Freakin' Cord Integrator" ????

All I know at this point is I fixed the leak in the cooling tower and when I replace the electrical hook ups they will be outside grade stuff in a waterproof box... or some similar set up.

BTW, incase anyone was offended by the title of this thread, first of all let me say... uh.... I DON"T CARE.... and uh.... GET OVER IT.... and uh... I was actually calling MYSELF a moron for having such an Appalachian-engeneered set up like that in the first place. It was also named that to GET YOUR FREAKIN' ATTENTION and make you read it and apparently it did it's job. In addition, those of you who know me and have read some of my posts KNOW to expect that kind of crapola from me and not to take me too seriously because most of the time I'm just "pokin' fun" or "stirring the pudding" or "chumming the waters" or whatever. In any case, I have wasted waaaaaaaay too much time on this paragraph as it is so I'm gonna go sit on the back porch and have a beer before I have to go to work in a couple hours. Hmmmm. I'll bet I'd be a lot more friendly if I had a beer RIGHT BEFORE I went into work...

I guess I'll have to think about that one. Definitely worth consideration though......
 
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