Yikes! I need help!!

[jnarowe]

A DC8 on my system stopped working late last night and shut down my heaters and return pump! When I manually enter commands the green light blinks but no power is applied. The tank got down to 74.5F and is really cloudy...this is right in the middle of a tank cycle for God's sake!!!:mad2:

 

[Carlos]

I have heard that the DC8 have a small resistor inside. Have you checked and see if the resistor burned out????

Just thinking outloud here.

Carlos

 

[jnarowe]

I heard about a fuse situation so now that I have clamed down I am going to inspect it and see what I can see.

 

[DrBDC]

Is this a dc8 before or after the recall?

 

[clp]

It sounds like the fuse is blown. All the outlets are off, however, the LED is on and blinks when commands are sent.
I know nothing of a small resistor inside the DC8 that would have anything to do with this.

Curt

 

[jnarowe]

Yup, it's the fuse. Blown nasty. And that unit is not easy to get open because the green LED is inset into the case so the "clam shell" doesn't come apart very easy. It took about 10 minutes to get it open.

The position the fuse is in also is tough to deal with.

Can I just say, "BREAKER"???

 

[jnarowe]

Fuse is fried. Can't find a replacement locally. I am SCREWED. $2K in live rock cycling and I can't control my system properly. Not only does this cause me a headache now, but what about when I add another pump? How am I going to keep this from happening again?

Not cool.

 

[David Grigor]

This is not specific to the Neptune.

As with any system, you should be thinking/planning for worst case scenerios and doing what you can to prevent them.

Having all of your equipment running through the DC8 is not a good idea when redundancy is involved.

Ideally, you should split up your devices on multiple circuits so that if one was to fail, blow a fuse, trip a gfci, or trip a circuit breaker that not all of your critical stuff goes down.

This applies especially to your circulation. You should have some type of circuilation on a different device or circuit. For example, return pump on something other than the DC8 and preferably on a different electrical circuit altogether from your other circulation devices such as a closed loop, powerheads etc. So that if one or the other was to fail, you still have some sort of circulation for your tank.

 

[Carlos]

If all you have is rock curing, I would not worry about it. You should see the systems in which MO companies keep their so called "cured" rock.

You can always put timers while you get a new fuse. We all do that because you can never rely 100% on what you currently have. Always have a plan "B". Wait until you have thousands of dollars in irreplaceable livestock and things go wrong. We all have those days.

Carlos

 

[clp]

It sounds like you are trying to power too much high power equipment on one circuit/Direct Connect box. The 1600 Watt of heat are 13+ amps, and the 3+ amps for the pump, which is more than the 15 Amp rating of the DC8 fuse. I'd budget at 10 to 20% of margin on each circuit so that blown fuses or circuit breakers are not likely.
Here is a link to a DIY project to divide the power up to different circuits: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=795521 . This is possible option if want to move a few high current devices to different circuit than the direct connect box.

Curt

 

[Sk8r]

Better now than after you have live corals, at least, but what a bummer. I ran my skimmer all the way through cycling, and it did no harm to the cycle. It might be a good thing to do now.

 

[jnarowe]

Curt Thanks for the link. I'll check it out. I really do appreciate your help and patience. It makes up for product issues and that is what counts.

David My system is far more complex than the one DC8. I am also using 3 DC4HDs as well as some "off-line" timers etc. I have one 1000W MH lamp on each DC4HD, as well as a string of moonlights on one, light movers on the other two, and there will be 4 Vortech pumps split up between them as well. The moonlights, light movers, and Vortechs are all low amp. items. I also will run a CO2 solenoid off a DC4HD.

But Curt is correct that I just had too much plugged into the DC8. It had my return pump, 2 - 800W heaters, 2 low amp CF refugium lights, and 2 low amp blowers. I still need to add another Sequence pump and an air pump so I will definitely have to move some stuff around. I thought I had it set up OK but obviously not.

I have a lot of plan "B"s but I just was surprised about this failure and it happened in the middle of the night of course. Since my stroke my brain doesn't quite calculate correctly, particularly when I am fatigued!:rolleye1:

I am going to install push button curcuit breakers in these units as the fuses blow. It will be much easier than having to take it apart to replace fuses.

 

[David Grigor]

Thats was just an example. My point was to have some of your circulation on different circuits and/or devices so you don't loose all your circulation if something goes down. What you described suggested that you had no circulation. If in fact you did have circulation other than the return pump and not all on the DC8 then your covered and you made it sound far worse than the situation really was....

 

[jnarowe]

actually it was bad since I don't have the Vortechs yet, so I was without circulation. Hey, it happens. I just got torqued but it was my fault anyway. My timing is off and I probably should have waited to get the rock into the tank until I had the Vortechs, but it was miserable staring at an empty tank.

When I install teh push-button breakers I'll post it in this group. It should be fairly easy and save me a lot of trouble in the future. I am quite surprised I can't get that fuse through my marine suppliers. They only go up to the 10 amp GMA...