I think my tank killed the power

FYI - This might be an expensive fix. DOH :frustrat: I do not like to mess with electrical stuff. Last time I had some eletrical work done in my house it wasen't cheap. Hopefully you get off easy. Good luck
 
no it is not cheap to fix electrical probs unless you know the person doing it. hope you get it fixed soon biff. i want to add another outlet box for my tank but the wire is almost 200 dollars for a hundred feet.
 
With the price of copper right now,Aint no way I'd want to be having to do electrical work done.
 
daugherty said:
no it is not cheap to fix electrical probs unless you know the person doing it. hope you get it fixed soon biff. i want to add another outlet box for my tank but the wire is almost 200 dollars for a hundred feet.
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unfortunatly this is very tru. Id fix it for you if i lived closer.....and Ive never heard that putting a Gfci protected strip outlet would be negated by another Gfci on that receptical. We plug gfci 3way recepticals into gfci outlets all the time. I will have to ask around about that 1.
also biff i got to thinking if your wire is burning up sometimes the breaker wont trip because a breaker is designed to trip on a short and not with something like that. They now have arc fault breakers for that. And depending on what national electric code you are on your bedrooms and even other rooms may eventually require it. But blah blah let us know what the problem was.And i hope it doesnt cost you and arm and a leg.
 
i know absolutly nothing about electrical work but thats sucks your tank has been this long without power and hopefully the electrition comes/came today, if not you should have them give you a discount on your price once the work is done
 
lightcs4 said:
Have you checked the grounding on the outlet? There are simple testers you can get for around $5 that will check for the correct wiring on an outlet. It has three prongs to fit the outlet and three lights. You just match the light with the guide on the tester to see if it is wired correctly, has a ground fault, or reverse wired.

And I always heard something similar about GFCI outlets. I was always told you only need one at the beginning of the circuit to protect the whole line. I'm not an electrician though.
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I have one of then testers. I wonder if it's on the same circuit as the bathroom? If it is then that woulkd mean it's on a GFCI circuit. So I wouldn't need the GFCI on my tank power strip. Right?
 
Piggy said:
I have one of then testers. I wonder if it's on the same circuit as the bathroom? If it is then that woulkd mean it's on a GFCI circuit. So I wouldn't need the GFCI on my tank power strip. Right?
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My *understanding* is that anything after the GFCI outlet is also protected as it will trip the GFCI, closing off the entire leg of the circuit. However, I work as in computer networking, not an electrician, so I would get verification. Fastlight has an electrical background (he's an electrician). He might know for sure.
 
So biff what's the story with the tank? Did you ever have anyone show up? I'm starting to worry for your poor corals.
 
Yeah, the electrician came yesterday. He took off all the outlet covers of all the outlets that were affected. In out outlet, he found all the wires black and melted together, and the inside of the wall was black. Everything was burned!! He replaced everything and suggested that if we really didn't want this to happen again, that we create a new, separate, bigger circuit just for the tank. Well, that's not going to happen right now ($$$) so instead we rearranged the living room and dining room, put half of the lights (one ballast) on one circuit, and the other ballast on another circuit (before both ballasts were plugged into the same circuit).

Just too much juice!!!

We were really lucky though, that it shut down before the fire spread outside of the wall.
 
Well Biff count your blessings. Im sorry to hear that your electic failed but i could have been much worse. With me being a voulenteer fireman too i see both sides of this. Many people that have their electrical burn up also have there house too. I would seriously look into an arc fault breaker($40) and then also gfci protect the recepticals. Unfortunatly i had a feeling by what you said that this was the case. You just had too much wattage on that circuit. I hope everything works out for you and dont hesitate to ask any other electrical questions that might concern you.

Also for those asking the Gfci question. If you have something directly plugged into a gfci it will be protected wether it be a direct connection or through a power strip Technically you can also gfci protect a normal receptical in a wall by a gfci plug but the normal receptical would have to be on the load side......
Hope thats some help
 
Eek! My tank is at 84 degrees now. So I've changed my timers to 9 hour light cycles instead of the usual 12.

I surveyed the tank today, after it being without lights for nearly 5 days. There were a few losses.

My orange monti cap is totally white, bleached...
My FAVORITE pink zoanthids (they were a bubblegum pink with very large heads) are totally gone. Not even their bodies are left.
I'm missing a few ricordeas that probably got sick of the darkness and jumped ship.

Everything else looks okay, that I've noticed (for now).

Of course, the majano that I spend an hour trying to kill off last week is back in full force, as is the kenya weed and xenia. Sigh.

I'm going to really really have to try to find those zoanthids again online. They were expensive :( And slow growers too :( They were $10 a head at my LFS, and I only could afford two of them, so for the last 2 years, I've been patiently growing them out. I had about 20 of them at last count. Now the whole colony is gone :cry:. They looked like this:

http://www.coralroadtrips.com/coralpics/truepink.jpg

:cry:
 
really sorry to hear about your losses. but you definately should be thankful for the losses that didnt have, like everything you own less your bf and your broken car.

hope all continues on its normal path and you have no more issues. glad all 30 fish are a-ok and well rested from the 5 day nap :)
 
It never occurred to me that something like this could happen. I am going to make sure my tank has its own circuit before I turn it on.

Biffer I would totally check out www.vividaquariums.com for zoos
They have a great number and maybe you could call them and see if they have what you are looking for.
 
Sounds like you had a lucky escape - but also sorry to hear about the zoas after they have needed so much time to grow - then such a short time to go :-(
 
Biff, I have hundreds of those pink zoa's. I would donate some to your "rebirth". You gonna be in PA anytime soon? These are the same 1's I traded with Sanjay for some of his SPS frags.
zoos_3-08.jpg
 
Sorry about all the trouble you are going through.

It might be a good time to think about running low wattage lighting,you know,like T5's.
 
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