kabooom

[cowfishrule]

this is why its important to
a: use gfi's
b: buy good equipment
my wife and i were sitting, watching tv, when we hear this crashing sound... turns out my heater exploded
good think i was in the room. when the heater went, it tripped off my gfi, thank god

 

[cowfishrule]

2

 

[gun freak]

What kind of heater ?

 

[dacia]

Was the heater too small for the tank?

 

[cowfishrule]

it was a rena 300w
i've had it for a couple of years now
it just went boom

 

[armlocker]

I blew one up mixing a batch of saltwater a month ago in tha basement (not a gfi) you should hear that sucker crackle when its still got power after it pops lol.

 

[sammiefish]

Is your tank grounded? I wonder if that is what made the GFI able to trip... well whatever it was thats great it did trip as they dont always in that type of situation... BTW what sort of GFI are you running? a wall outlet or one of the extension cord integrated GFI's?

 

[dalerich]

I installed a GFCI on my system. But I thought it would be worthless because the tank was not grounded like a bath tub or sink. I glad to hear no one got shocked or hurt. I also glad to hear that maybe the GFCI would work after all and maybe it was not as worthless as I thought. If your tank was grounded please let me know how you did it. I don't think a copper plate in my tank would be good for inverts. Saltwater is a excellant conductor. but I think it only takes 6mA to stop your heart at 120V AC. Sorry about your Heater but thanks for the lesson.

 

[sammiefish]

You can purchase a titanium grounding rod labelled for aquarium use. I think about $20.

 

[dreuster]

2 Words for your upgrade.
Titanium Heaters.

 

[wax32]

Did the heater exploding have any ill effect on your tank's inhabitants?

 

[cowfishrule]

i went out and bought a titanium heater
i have a wall gfi that tripped, and there were no effects on my tank at all... everybody is still breathing and eating and swimming....

 

[dory36]

This must be the season for breaking heaters! Ours blew Sunday night when we were all asleep. I didn't notice anything until last night when my pump was making a strange sound and our tank was cloudy. When I reached in to see what was wrong with the pump, I noticed my heater had burst. The temperature of my tank was at 70 degrees and my skunk shrimp was flat on his back. We had to dump everything out of the tank into a 30g bucket to get rid of the glass. What a pain! We also had to make an emergency run to the lfs for a new heater and pump. My clownfish, goby, and gramma survived along with my cleanup crew. Those long antennas on my shrimp probably caused him to be electrocuted. Ouch!