jjjimmy
Premium Member
As many of you know, I just recently finished a major lighting upgrade.earlier this week. I do not think that the upgrade itself was the problem but the act of doing the upgrade.
I needed to stay late at work today and around 5:30 my wife calls me. She says "it smells like something is burning and I am not sure what. I do not think that you have to come home right away but I wanted you to be aware so that you could check it out when you get home."
Well something just didn't sound right, so I left anyway. Traffic was an absolute bear with Lake Cook road being closed for the summer. When I finally got home, I went right under the tank to check out the ballasts and wiring (thinking that it was just the news ballasts burning in). Low and behold, to my horror, there is a glowing connector. As carefully and quickly as I could, I pulled out the glowing connector while trying to unplug all of the ballasts with my other hand. Within 30 seconds, the connector flashed into fire. At this point, being careful was no longer an option. I "yanked" out all of the plugs for the lights and was able to blow out the connector fire avoiding total disaster.
Once everything (including myself) had calmed down, I took a further look. The root cause was not the wiring but a new slow leak from my left side return line bulkhead fitting. It had created a puddle where the connectors for this particular ballast was laying. We all no that water (especially saltwater) does not mix with electricity. I called a good friend of mine right after and he is coming by in the morning with a new bulkhead fitting and is going to fix the leak.
This whole event really opened up my eyes to keeping electrical equipment under the tank. I will only be keeping the bare minimum under there and definitely hung up off of the floor. Saturday, I will undertake the job of relocating all of the ballsasts to the basement, far away from the tank. All connectors will be secured, taped and I am going to try to find some type of water seal for wiring.
In closing, we all love this hobby a great deal but sometimes some of us don't think about taking the extra step for safety. You can replace your tank and equipment. You can replace your livestock. You cannot replace your family. Please all of you, take a few moments to double check your equipment and make sure that everything is out of harms way.
Jimmy
I needed to stay late at work today and around 5:30 my wife calls me. She says "it smells like something is burning and I am not sure what. I do not think that you have to come home right away but I wanted you to be aware so that you could check it out when you get home."
Well something just didn't sound right, so I left anyway. Traffic was an absolute bear with Lake Cook road being closed for the summer. When I finally got home, I went right under the tank to check out the ballasts and wiring (thinking that it was just the news ballasts burning in). Low and behold, to my horror, there is a glowing connector. As carefully and quickly as I could, I pulled out the glowing connector while trying to unplug all of the ballasts with my other hand. Within 30 seconds, the connector flashed into fire. At this point, being careful was no longer an option. I "yanked" out all of the plugs for the lights and was able to blow out the connector fire avoiding total disaster.
Once everything (including myself) had calmed down, I took a further look. The root cause was not the wiring but a new slow leak from my left side return line bulkhead fitting. It had created a puddle where the connectors for this particular ballast was laying. We all no that water (especially saltwater) does not mix with electricity. I called a good friend of mine right after and he is coming by in the morning with a new bulkhead fitting and is going to fix the leak.
This whole event really opened up my eyes to keeping electrical equipment under the tank. I will only be keeping the bare minimum under there and definitely hung up off of the floor. Saturday, I will undertake the job of relocating all of the ballsasts to the basement, far away from the tank. All connectors will be secured, taped and I am going to try to find some type of water seal for wiring.
In closing, we all love this hobby a great deal but sometimes some of us don't think about taking the extra step for safety. You can replace your tank and equipment. You can replace your livestock. You cannot replace your family. Please all of you, take a few moments to double check your equipment and make sure that everything is out of harms way.
Jimmy
