Electrified water?

[Pragmatic Lemur]

I have an 80 gallon saltwater tank that I just recently started up. I was running everything but the skimmer for about 2 days when all of the sudden I put my hand in the water to test it and was shocked, literally. It was quite painful but even more surprising. I called the LFS and found that it was probably a bad pump. I had to unplug each pump and test the water with my finger to eliminate the bad pump. This was traumatizing. The problem seems to be fixed now that I have taken out the bad pump, but I'm scared to death because everything worked fine for a while first. I'm terrified it will happen again, and even more terrified that it will happen when fish are in the tank. Has this happened to anyone else? Is this uncommon? or common? Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to prevent this from happening again.

 

[freshmike]

Ugh. Wow. I have never heard of that happening before....but I have always been afraid of it...powerheads and heaters and such....I guess I wasn't just paranoid after all. Glad you didn't get electrocuted though....and hope all goes well in the future.

 

[cutechic]

Welcome to the forum, Pragmatic Lemur! It isn't very common- I guess you were just "lucky."

 

[Pragmatic Lemur]

LOL, i certainly wasnt "lucky" trust me. I am scared to touch the water everytime now. It sucks. I cant believe my tank kicked my ass.

 

[lucky62]

go freshwater , get a G.F.C.I [ ground falt curcit interupter ] for your power strip[ we all should have these] .It should cut off the power in cases like this , and through process of elimination you should be able to find the offending appliance . Electricity is pretty scarey .

 

[Pragmatic Lemur]

Lucky 62...Freshwater is certainly not an option. I already have one. Plus this tank I have is a reef tank, with an overflow, sump, protein skimmer, and everything. The GFCI you mentioned...where might i find these? How much am i looking to spend?

 

[Inchworm]

Hi Pragmatic Lemur

Welcome to the forum!