Pump Problem

rgpennell

New member
How's everybody doing? It's been awhile since I was on this board but I have been busy wasting what money I didn't have on an unsuccessful bid for State Representative - incumbent's are hard to beat!

Anyway, I have missed all of you and now that I am trying to get back into things (my tank has taken a back seat and looks like hell) I'm having a problem. Today I started to clean the tank (acrylic) which was completely covered with algae and in the process some water came up over the side from time to time. I didn't think too much of it until we started to smell what smelled like an electric fire - you know that delightful smell of melting plastic insulation or whatever it is. It was coming from beneath the tank in the cabinet but I have both an Iwaki pump and my aquacontroller over in that area so I wasn't sure which it might be. I turned off the pump and it seemed to dissipate but I can't leave the tank without water circulation.

Question: is it possible that this was just due to some water getting into one of the outlets and everything will be alright after it dries out or does that make any sense? If you haven't guessed, I know a great deal about a lot of things but electricity isn't one of them!

The pump is still working when I turn it back on. Is there likely a problem with the pump? Its only been running a year and it was new when I got it.

Is it possible it is the aquacontroller? There was a recall on these and I never was able to get back there to check if mine was one of those under the recall but since the smell went away when I turned off the pump would it make sense for it to be the controller. Note the pump wasn't plugged into the controller, although both are plugged into the same wall outlet.

If I have to replace the pump at least temporarily anyone out there have a pump I could use at least temporarily?

Any thoughts? Help!

Rob Pennell
 
will help and I have plenty of pumps-is there a discount on legal schmutz? JK
If you need a new pump PM me
PL
 
Well I left the pump running and it seems to be fine - no more electrical fire smells. I guess it was just due to getting some water in the wrong place.

I appreciate the responses and offers of help. I may still need some help if I can't figure out what exactly is wrong with the tank - most of the corals have suffered terribly but then some seem to be thriving. I guess I should stick with the "you can't kill them" type corals while I'm campaigning next time. :)
 
I had that happened a couple of months ago when my skimmer over flowed onto a timer.. All I had to do is wait till everything was dry. But I would still watch everything very closely.
 
Well I found what was burning the other day - my power strip attached to the fans on my MH lights. Do you know what happens to your UV shield without the fans running? You end up with nice pretty bowl shaped melted depressions underneath each bulb! Cool huh? Well I tried to plug them into another strip and it blew the breaker so I'm having a lot of fun!

I get tired of there always being something.
 
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