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HELP!!! woke up from nap with burnt smell: fish belly up and inverts and corals okay.

sump_penny

sump_penny

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woke up to smell of burnt plastic or rubber. fish dead some belly up gasping. weird thing is that the inverts are okay and the corals are fine . The water has a burnt smell to it. I immeadiately threw some prime on the water. gonna check chemistry now but looking for suspects as I type, wiring, pumps, heaters.. etc...

any ideas.... ??
 
damn just checked it and sure enough one of the heaters was fried and smokin. some small encrusting inverts managed to pop the top a crack open with growth.

i dont have the glass heater so no cracked glass, i have the black plastic/titanium type....

how funny i came back to post an update and i see your post about the heater.. LOL


just fired up the ro filter and im running to the LFS with jugs. any other ideas besides a massive water change?
 
can't think of the name, but those filter pads with the contaminant absorber coated (works to remove heavy metals from the water. I'm sure someone can translate my brain fart).
 
Remove the following from your tank

Starting with the heater! and Any Power heads that are inside...

Check the Sump Pumps as well?

Do you have any UV Filters (especially the submersible ones)

Watch out not to get electrocuted. Keep yourself Insulated at all times (wear rubber boots)

Oh I just read the rest... Yes It's usually the heater!

Change Carbon Quickly and Do a 20% water change today and another tomorrow.

If you have a plexi tank, remove covers to give it as much air as possible... and Crank the Skimmer!

Also turn off the Lights! Run in darkness the next 24 hours.

Speaking from experience of course :)

I've had a heater break which was inside my Chiller! Was not FUN!
 
Poly filters! I had a similar instance and those things can work wonders. If you don't have any, pick up a bunch to have handy, Drs Foster & Smith have them on sale now.
 
Dang! That sucks!
Titanium heater goes bad. That's a new one, I have heard of the glass ones going bad so many times before but never titanium.
Now I'm worried.
How old was it?
what brand?
I'm thinking of pulling mine out of the tank and just leaving one in the sump.
(I have one in each now)
So sorry for your loss.
 
Yes, it's best to place it in the sump... That way no loss in life can happen...

I had a Submersible UV Filter go bad and leak current in the water... I found out when I was cleaning the sump that I was getting shocked by the water! Let's just say that was NOT pleasant!

And I had a heater break inside a chiller and burn the water all the way to the sump. Lucky for me, the Chiller stopped and blocked any water from going to the tank somehow!

I now recommend using this one:
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=12060
 
Cuprisorb or Chemi-pure should also helps if you don't have access to the poly pads. They both removes heavy metals but Cuprisorb is best for copper removal.
 
You should get a titanium ground probe for your tank. It removes stray voltage which may have caused the deaths. A GFCI will also shut off the power if it detects high current.
 
Ok this is always part of much debate so I'll chime in here.

I think a grounding probe is an incredibly bad idea, because while yeah it could potentially help, it also could hurt because you could have a faulty piece of equipment in the tank and not even know about it.

Plus a GFCI will not trip if you have stray current in the tank... unless if course some of it goes through you :)
 
The ground probe should trip the GFCI if something is faulty I think.


Or.... you could cut your finger and let it heal for a day then stick it in the water while holding on to a water pipe or something...Does my sarcasm come across ok here? :D :bigsmile:
 
JAR said:
The ground probe should trip the GFCI if something is faulty I think.


Or.... you could cut your finger and let it heal for a day then stick it in the water while holding on to a water pipe or something...Does my sarcasm come across ok here? :D :bigsmile:
Click to expand...

Theoretically it depends if the ground probe is attached to a different outlet than the circuit of the GFCI... theoretically.

However I've been shocked before and not had the GFCI trip on me too, that might just mean there wasn't enough lost current to trip it, or it was bad :D And you don't want your finger to heal too much, your blood makes for an excellent conductor and the less skin there is between you and the current the better :D ... oh yeah it really helps if you're pretty wet in salt water from working on other tanks :)
 
just replaced a stealth 250 today! Mine was giving me a shock everytime I needed to go into the tank! But nice thing about those, is it breaks you bring it back and walk out with a new one
 
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