Electrified Fish Tank

[flillia]

I was messing around with my tank just now, moving some java ferns around near the overhanging heater (which was unplugged overnight but still in the tank)

All of the sudden I got a zap.. nothing painful in the least, just a weird "whoa" feeling. So I touched the water again.. another zap. I double checked to make sure that the heater was unplugged and it was.. though when I put my hand near the heater I got another quick zap

I panicked a tad and unplugged the entire setup, including the filter. The fish seem completely unbothered by the sudden influx of electricity but I'm guessing that the lack of filter will get to them soon. I took the heater entirely out of the tank.

Is there anything I need to do to "ground" the tank or will the electric charge dissipate on its own? I don't really feel like sticking my hands back in there. What could have caused the electricity? I was messing around near the heater but as I said, it was unplugged and had been for some time.. unless I had splashed water over the back and somehow made a connection to the (poorly placed) power strip but that seems unlikely too.

Help please!!

 

[minxfishy]

Ouch strange if everything is unplugged. Rubber is a good grounding material isnt it? Could be wrong, but thats the best I can think of at the moment.

 

[Ludwig Venter]

Inherent with keeping fish, is becomming an amateur electrician......I've been "zapped" to the extent that I see little stars at the inside crown of my head and lighting bolts goes from my thighs to ground. Just wear shoes when you put your fingers in there and it goes away........

But seriously, this is not advisable.... Get a qualified electrician to check it out.... I have not yet and gets "zapped" quite often....

 

[flillia]

I called my dad, who is an electrical engineer, and he thinks that I should take the heater and filter over to a store and see if they could test them for shorts

This is totally weirding me out though. Has anyone ever heard of an electrical thing like this happening caused by the filter (or even the lighting, somehow?)?

It has to be the heater but yet it can't be.. I was messing around right next to the heater, after all, and it's the only thing I've ever heard that caused electricity in the tank.. but it was unplugged! This is messing with my head.

By the way, thanks for the help so far everyone.

 

[Ludwig Venter]

I called my dad, who is an electrical engineer, and he thinks that I should take the heater and filter over to a store and see if they could test them for shorts

This is totally weirding me out though. Has anyone ever heard of an electrical thing like this happening caused by the filter (or even the lighting, somehow?)?

It has to be the heater but yet it can't be.. I was messing around right next to the heater, after all, and it's the only thing I've ever heard that caused electricity in the tank.. but it was unplugged! This is messing with my head.

By the way, thanks for the help so far everyone.

More often than not, I find it is my submersable filters being culprit.....Hey!! ..... Tell your dad to get off his chair and do the test for you.... being electrical engineer, he is now qualified to do this for a very close relative.....

 

[flillia]

More often than not, I find it is my submersable filters being culprit.....Hey!! ..... Tell your dad to get off his chair and do the test for you.... being electrical engineer, he is now qualified to do this for a very close relative.....

Haha! I wish, but sadly he's in Mexico this week on business

I didn't know that filters could ever do *anything* bad so thanks for your insight I don't have a submersible filter though but an over-the-wall one. The principle is probably the same though!

I'm trying to figure out where I'd take these to have them tested. I have everything unplugged at the wall right now so everything is safe to touch (I'd hope.) My dad thinks that an independent fish store or an electrical section of a hardware store might have the capacity to check something like that for shorts but I'm guessing that the fish store has the water but no tools and the hardware store will have tools but no water

My lil fishies are still doing fine, good thing my tank is mostly female bettas.

 

[Ludwig Venter]

Yea.... They'll be allright.... I've kept them outside at 17 deg C with no filter & aeration, and they were just fine.....

Rather the electrical section than the pets.... They can get ahold of water easier than the pet store can get ahold of the knowledge.......

 

[fifefish]

Ouch strange if everything is unplugged. Rubber is a good grounding material isnt it? Could be wrong, but thats the best I can think of at the moment.

rubber is one of the worst grounding materials..its a good insulator..
you need a metal wire that is connected to the ground

 

[petertr]

Ouch strange if everything is unplugged. Rubber is a good grounding material isnt it? Could be wrong, but thats the best I can think of at the moment.

rubber is one of the worst grounding materials..its a good insulator..
you need a metal wire that is connected to the ground

Im glad someone pointed that out



Just switch everything back on, 1 at a time, until the zap feeling returns - Assuming you're still alive, you've found the culprit!

 

[Schmill]

In all honesty I would do exactly the same as the poster above, (except I'd make sure you have an RCD on your supply cable, which you should have anyway with water involved!)

In your first post you comment about allowing the electrical charge to dissapate' Don't worry about this, there is nothing in your tank to 'charge' so equally there is nothing to 'dissapate'. If you aren't putting electricity in, then there won't be any there.

First, if you are 100% certain that your heater was unplugged, it won't have 'zapped' you. Ok, maybe once if there was power stored in some smoothing capacitors in the design, but that unlikely, and even then there wouldn't be enough to do it twice.
Theoretically water is a reasonably good conductor of electricity, so if there was 'electricity' in the water then you could get a shock when you touched the water. It would have to be very low levels to only get you when you got close to the heater.
Is there a chance that when you move to approach the heater, you are actually leaning on / against anything else at the same time? (ie. it seems like the heater, but it's actually not).

Anyway as I say, if the heater was 100% certainly unplugged, then the ONLY way it could have zapped you would have been from charge in capacitors, and this would rely on it a) Having capacitors, b) having the thermostat set so that the heater would be 'off' (otherwise the charge would just go into the heater coils) and c) having a fault.

Sorry, probably not been much help actually, but I just can't see how anything would have 'zapped' you that way...

 

[Athena]

Just wondering - do you have carpet in that room? Were you wearing rubber soled shoes or just socks etc - is it possible that you had a build up of static electricity in your body?

I know that this happens to me some times if I'm wearing certain shoes at work and I end up getting zapped all day long on various things (mostly anything metal).

Athena


Ok - having made the above suggestion I did a bit of Googling to see if I could find anything to substantiate that theory - found this which you might find interesting!

http/answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qi...18083402AATBUTf

 

[fifefish]

i doubt any heater would have a capacitor its only thing that need to build up enough charge to start a link between two contacts basically that have ..like lights, or a tesla electric gun

 

[andywg]

Have a look into stray voltage in aquaria and you will find that any number of things could be adding voltage to the water. When you touch the water you allow the charge to earth through you and you get the shock.

Even aquarium light tubes have the capacity to leach voltage into the tank as well as heaters, powerheads, filters - basically everything in the tank.

If you are really worried about it then you can install a titanium grounding probe to carry all the current away from the tank.

Some experimental data is available here

 

[Truck]

all tank equipment should be earthed anyway so i dont know how there could still be a shock

 

[smegforbrains]

all tank equipment should be earthed anyway so i dont know how there could still be a shock

Nothing on the market is earthed. They are all double insulated and more often than not made from plastic or glass anyway. This is why you only have two cables in the flex - live and neutral (although the neutral is technically an earth anyway, just takes a different route to get there).