Fire Safety

[turbo4603]

Ima need to do a lil of electrical work today!!!
Since ive read this thread, ive called home 3 times to see if there is any problems with my tanks!!!!

[chetrod]

This is something that has been on my mind for quite some time. My neighbor was helping me wire up my VHO Ballast and mentioned that I need to run a dedicated circuit to the tank. I also want to make a metal box where all the outlets would go and use some type of hard wired timer. to control some of the outlets. I just don't know where to find the box or how to make one. Any Ideas!! or can any of you take some pics of your electrical stuff to help the guilty like myself make my tank a safer one.....

[inwall75]

It's not hard but if you've never done any electrical work before PLEASE HIRE AN ELECTRICIAN.

The first thing you need to do is see if you have any open circuits in your circuit breaker box.



For instance the box above has 4 open circuits. I purposely use two separate circuits for water moving equipment. For instance, if the return pump is on Circuit A, then the powerheads, tunze streams, seio's, etc. would all be on Circuit B. So if one circuit blew while you are at work, you would still have water movement running. This is very important for keeping Dissolved Oxygen levels good until you get home.

Also, when I did my wiring I used AFCI (Arc Fault Circuit Interrupt) breakers and also GFCI outlets at the tank. On one circuit, I had 4 GFCI receptacles. On the other circuit, I had 2 GFCI receptacles.

Timers--- Intermatic Programmable Timer (Heavy Duty) [EI20C] - $49.95 : blackEnergy, The Power to Empower

[ziggy222]

lol salt is so corrosive i'm surprised more people don't have fires .i worked in a corrosive environment ,strong acids cyanide liquid metals.a plating shop.anyway sometimes the breaker boxes would get dusty and corroded and explode off the wall a good 20 feet.osha eventually made us by non corrosive breakers,sealed.

[Dador]

Thanks for the heads up!! Karma to you!

[inwall75]

bump for a friend who just had a fire.

Important reminder for all of us

[schackmel]

thanks Curt for listening and talking me down! They are coming now to see how much damage is done to the tank. Hopefully it is just to the plugs. Next purchase is right surge protectors. I made sure I bought all the best equipment for my tanks, yet I went and spent $2-3 for power strips. Luckily I was home and was looking for the smell when the fire broke out.

[Bogie]

Everyone should take a minute to check their power strips to see if they are the "cheapos" or not. Look for the shiny silver UL sticker.

Some power strips are UL Listed power taps, but this does not mean that they will offer any protection to pumps, lights, ballasts and other equipment. It simply means they pass UL standards for turning one outlet into many, and have passed simple electrical tests.

What you want to see is the UL sticker that classifies your power strip also as a TVSS - transient voltage surge suppressor. A good one will re-direct excessive (spikes) current from Neutral to Ground, Line to Ground, and Ground to Neutral. This redirecting of excessive (transient, spikes, etc..) current is typically done using a series of MOVs (metal oxide varistors). The MOVs are only good for so many current spikes at so many Joules, then they're toast and no longer protect your equipment that is plugged into them.
Fires in powerstrips are most often caused by damaged or faulty MOVs. They short out, get HOT, and cause fires.

A friend of mine had a cheap Fellows brand power strip catch fire just after last Christmas, after taking down the lights. NOTHING was even plugged into it, all the lights were put away. Still the power strip was plugged into the wall. If his son hadn't skipped classes and was sleeping on the couch that day, the house would have gone up flames. The only damage was a small burnt area of carpet and base board.

[Zectra]

I definitely don't have any cheapo power strip >.> I made sure all my electrical was good and set away.

[schackmel]

well it is not as bad as it could have been by far. They came out yesterday and all my MAJOR equip was on another strip...so no damage there. They plugged that back in and everything was working. I am in the process of changing my 2 tanks into one 125 tanks, so it was decided to just wait until the switch happened to reconnect everything else (I am now reconsidering that....will still do it just now a little more scared)

They did not look at the plugs of what caught on fire, so after they left I did and I think I figured out what happened. As I added on more equipment, I added on another el cheapo power strip. I placed the power strip on top of the sump (stupid move on my part). I had the store come out to do maintance and do a general overhaul on the pumps a couple weeks ago as I was having problems with the pump, and they were like..dude cant leave this like this. So they velcro the strip to the back of the stand. Well apparently it fell off, and was hanging down behind the sump. I did notice this but did not think a lot about it. Well, I guess somehow water got back there and started the fire, because when I looked at the plugs there was salt creep on the plug part of my UV sterilizer, my heater and on one of my pumps. My guess is some cord of one of my pumps got to close to the skimmer in the sump and just followed it down.

Thank GOD I did not have my hands in there when it happened. It never threw my circuit which is scary. So I am going to go buy those strips that shut off everytime water gets on them.

Unfortunately however I turned on the lights today, and I now have an outbreak of Ick in the tank. (BIG SURPRISE) I went up to Petsmart last night and added carbon just to be safe, and I could not tell you what my param are right now as my kits are packed away somewhere as I am in middle of moving everything and repainting and doing everything else....so I added Prime yesterday also. I figured it was half an emergency so I added 2 times the dose (It said you could add 5 times recommended amt in an emergency and a fire is?) The other thing is I have cut back so much on the stuff in my tank, that the temp is down to 75..cant believe I just bought a chiller last week because I never got below 83. So Petsmart opens in 1 hour and I do not know the status of my fried heater, and I threw my 55 gallon heater away (VERY POSSESSED TANK - nothing is crossing over) so I cant believe I am saying this but I will be buying a new heater (chiller is off!) I wish I was an electrician, I would rewire the UV plug, but like I said, every little noise one of the dogs made or the cat made I jumped up thinking it was another fire. I now have a smoke alarm (half as a joke for when my parents came down last night) right above the tank.