lizard
Married Lizard
- Joined
- Oct 8, 2003
- Messages
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Hello all.
You know how the filter and heater and light directions all say to make a "drip loop" when plugging it in? DO IT! I had forgotten about the whole drip loop thing...
Like I said, I re-did my tank this morning and hung an old sock in the tank with some gravel in it. The end of the sock hung over the outside of the tank. Being the brilliant person that I am sometimes
it did not occur to me that the sock was going to draw water out of the tank and drip. Yeah, you see where this is going? So, anyway, I have my tank all set up and happy and go take a shower and put away some laundry and blah, blah, blah. I hear a strange noise...check things out and decide it's coming from outside.
But then it sounds like it's coming from the fish tank. Hmmm, sand in the filter? Nope, filter sounds okay. Turn the hood lights on and off...nope, not them. Then I thought perhaps I had the air pump still plugged in, even though it wasn't in the tank. Nope, not that. Kept looking... I somehow determined (don't remember how) that it was the power strip sizzling. Uh-oh, that's not healthy (for me, the fish, or the power strip!). I checked things out and very carefully unplugged the power strip from the wall. It was rather wet, as were the cords plugged into it. I unplugged everything from the strip and turned it over to let the water drip off. Water dripped *out* of it (warm water, I might add). I dried things off and decided not to use the power strip anymore, at least not for awhile.
We have an old apartment and the plug-ins are on the baseboards. I looked at the wall near the plug-in and saw water was coming from somewhere up. After minimal investigation, I discovered that when I put the sock of gravel in the tank, I had failed to consider (i.e. forgotten) physics principles and water properties and that sock was pulling water out of the tank and the water was going down (toward the outlet) per the laws of gravity. Not a good situation.
So, I put the end of the sock in the tank and dried off the cords and the wall, and plugged the tank filter and lights back into the outlet (after making sure it was dry).
I'm very thankful that nothing "happened" other than some sizzling noises. Moral of the story: ALWAYS make sure your cords attached to your fish tanks (or anything else wet) have drip-loops. While having drip-loops wouldn't have kept the water from going down the wall, it would have prevented the water from running down the cords and into the power strip. Needless to say, I have taped the cords to the bottom of the shelf so that they make drip-loops.
Please go check your tanks, cords, and outlets! Make sure the cords won't run dripping water right to your power strip or outlet!
A very thankful-nothing-worse-happened and relieved fish keeper,
Pamela
aka Married Lizard
You know how the filter and heater and light directions all say to make a "drip loop" when plugging it in? DO IT! I had forgotten about the whole drip loop thing...
Like I said, I re-did my tank this morning and hung an old sock in the tank with some gravel in it. The end of the sock hung over the outside of the tank. Being the brilliant person that I am sometimes
it did not occur to me that the sock was going to draw water out of the tank and drip. Yeah, you see where this is going? So, anyway, I have my tank all set up and happy and go take a shower and put away some laundry and blah, blah, blah. I hear a strange noise...check things out and decide it's coming from outside. But then it sounds like it's coming from the fish tank. Hmmm, sand in the filter? Nope, filter sounds okay. Turn the hood lights on and off...nope, not them. Then I thought perhaps I had the air pump still plugged in, even though it wasn't in the tank. Nope, not that. Kept looking... I somehow determined (don't remember how) that it was the power strip sizzling. Uh-oh, that's not healthy (for me, the fish, or the power strip!). I checked things out and very carefully unplugged the power strip from the wall. It was rather wet, as were the cords plugged into it. I unplugged everything from the strip and turned it over to let the water drip off. Water dripped *out* of it (warm water, I might add). I dried things off and decided not to use the power strip anymore, at least not for awhile.
We have an old apartment and the plug-ins are on the baseboards. I looked at the wall near the plug-in and saw water was coming from somewhere up. After minimal investigation, I discovered that when I put the sock of gravel in the tank, I had failed to consider (i.e. forgotten) physics principles and water properties and that sock was pulling water out of the tank and the water was going down (toward the outlet) per the laws of gravity. Not a good situation.
So, I put the end of the sock in the tank and dried off the cords and the wall, and plugged the tank filter and lights back into the outlet (after making sure it was dry).I'm very thankful that nothing "happened" other than some sizzling noises. Moral of the story: ALWAYS make sure your cords attached to your fish tanks (or anything else wet) have drip-loops. While having drip-loops wouldn't have kept the water from going down the wall, it would have prevented the water from running down the cords and into the power strip. Needless to say, I have taped the cords to the bottom of the shelf so that they make drip-loops.
Please go check your tanks, cords, and outlets! Make sure the cords won't run dripping water right to your power strip or outlet!
A very thankful-nothing-worse-happened and relieved fish keeper,
Pamela
aka Married Lizard
)
