how wonderful. exploding heaters!

[Guest]

So i was sleeping last night and at about 4:30 am a loud "POP" and a flash of bright light woke me up. At first i thought the timer on one of my terrariums malfunctioned and a lamp burned out. So i rolled over and went back to sleep.

But the nagging feeling that something was really wrong would not let me go back to dreamy land. So i got up, threw on my robe and ventured downstairs.

(i live in a loft, that is how i saw the light from upstairs)

I looked around and none of my lights were burned out anywhere. So I figured nothing was wrong. Just as i started to walk away, i noticed something brown on the heater in my 10 gal.

The glass on the heater had exploded and a brown substance was all over the insides of the heater. the bottom of the glass was laying in the substrate.

I am lucky my fish weren't electrocuted to death. I pulled out the glass and the heater. and replaced it today with a higher quality one.

 

[AquaJoe]

Oh my god...

Please tell me you de-energized the heater/aquarium energy source before you even went near it!

A basic law of electricity is that it will take the path of least resistance to ground... In other words -YOU!

The fish would not have been affected by this unless the tank was grounded in which case a high volume of electricity would have been passing through the water. This would have had the potential to harm the fish.

Also, you may be interested to know that water will not conduct electricity unless it has salt (or a similar mineral) in it.

Geeze you really lucked out. Sorry to hear about the heater though.

Best,

Joe

 

[Guest]

yes, i unplugged it immediatley when i saw it was broken. and considering i low dose salt my tanks, i guess my fish are lucky too.

 

[mr funktastic]

i have a heater in my tank right now that i think may do the same thing. its a big als brand heater i got for free from someone else but the temperature sways dangerously. i am afraid it is going to over do its self and go bye bye.

 

[Peyton]

I've had one crack and another went haywire and cooked my fish but never seen one explode! I have to say thats one of my personal fears is to get electrocuted by my tank heaters. At least you and your fish came through ok.

 

[lyquidphyre]

I think Ive had two heaters explode. Come to think of it, they might have been the same brand of heater!

It's always kind of scary, good thing everything turned out alright!

 

[AquaJoe]

Look folks, I am pretty well educated when it comes to the dangers associated with electricity. This is because of my trade, I am a process operator - 4th class power engineer (aka: stationary engineer).

In the event that you EVER suspect that there is a live current input to your aquarium water the last thing you should worry about is the fish. Think about your own SAFETY first!

The safest way to approach a situation like FishyPeanut's would be to go to the breaker in your home (aka: switch board, electrical panel etc) and open (turn off) the the switch providing electricity to the outlet which in turn supplies the heater's electricity. Unfortunately, this will likely also cut off the power to the filter, lights etc but considering the danger outweighs the potential damages caused by cutting power to the other equipment.

I hope everyone takes this seriously.

Also, I wanted to correct something I said in an above post. Had the tank been properly grounded (eg: with a copper grounding wire of proper size for 120/240 volt) it is highly unlikely that FishyPeanut would have been electrocuted. If the aquarium was not grounded and their was 120/240 volts traveling through the water then FishyPeanut fait may have been a bit different.

Best,
Joe

 

[hc8719]

actually that happened the other day in my 20 gal, i was doing a pwc, unplugged the heater, but i guess it was still hot and exploded. it wasnt touching water at the time either, so the fish were ok, but i rushed the BGK back into the 55, them being as curious as they are, was like "ohh look, something new in the tank, i better rub my nose into it"

Oh my god... A basic law of electricity is that it will take the path of least resistance to ground... In other words -YOU!

The fish would not have been affected by this unless the tank was grounded in which case a high volume of electricity would have been passing through the water. This would have had the potential to harm the fish.

Also, you may be interested to know that water will not conduct electricity unless it has salt (or a similar mineral) in it.

umm actually from how i read this, isnt true, just fri at bio lecture, my prof was saying how fish can be electruced in a fish tank. even though the tank may not have "aquarium salt" in it, it does have salt, and other minerals, and chemicals that provide a path for electricty to travel, considering its tap water.

in other words, unless the water is distilled, electricty can travel, but fish cant live in distilled water either, so kinda a catch-22.

sure a broken heater wouldnt be spitting electricty directly to the water, but say you threw in a plugged in and running "personal heater" (like people use). the fish would be electructed, the fact that the electricty needs to make a complete circuit to the ground in not nessarily true to kill someone

 

[JohnPaul]

I've never had a heater explode on me but I've always feared it would happen, so I went out and invested in one of those all-metal heaters. They're pricier than the glass ones but the peace of mind, to me, is worth it.

 

[AquaJoe]

actually that happened the other day in my 20 gal, i was doing a pwc, unplugged the heater, but i guess it was still hot and exploded. it wasnt touching water at the time either, so the fish were ok, but i rushed the BGK back into the 55, them being as curious as they are, was like "ohh look, something new in the tank, i better rub my nose into it"

Oh my god... A basic law of electricity is that it will take the path of least resistance to ground... In other words -YOU!

The fish would not have been affected by this unless the tank was grounded in which case a high volume of electricity would have been passing through the water. This would have had the potential to harm the fish.

Also, you may be interested to know that water will not conduct electricity unless it has salt (or a similar mineral) in it.

"umm actually from how i read this, isnt true, just fri at bio lecture, my prof was saying how fish can be electruced in a fish tank. even though the tank may not have "aquarium salt" in it, it does have salt, and other minerals, and chemicals that provide a path for electricty to travel, considering its tap water."

-Yup, it's true. Mineral content can make the water able to carry electricity which I did mention above.

in other words, unless the water is distilled, electricty can travel, but fish cant live in distilled water either, so kinda a catch-22.

sure a broken heater wouldnt be spitting electricty directly to the water, but say you threw in a plugged in and running "personal heater" (like people use). the fish would be electructed, the fact that the electricty needs to make a complete circuit to the ground in not nessarily true to kill someone

-In order for electricity to move from it's source or potential location back to ground (where it wants to go more then anything) it has to pass through something otherwise it just wont 'move'. For example, lets take the common house hold (insert any 120 volt appliance name here). It connects to your wall using two prongs, one is a positive the other obviously being a negative. Electricity travels in to the line through the positive prong and then in to your applicane. The appliance uses the electricity, in other words the elctricity is "consumed" and what ever remains of it is sent back to the outlet via the negative cable/prong. This unconsumed portion is eventually put to ground at some location, maybe the pool outside your house or in an extreme case your house's breaker box. All that being said, if you were to take the same appliance and simply snip the negative wire it would no longer work. Weird no? The reason is because electricity now has no path to ground and therefore is not attracted to your lovely household appliance. Whereas if the negative (otherwise known as the ground wire) were there obviously the electricity would have a path to ground. If there were no other path of least resistance then it would flow through the positive cable, do it's work (such as maybe toast your bread) on it's way through and then go back to the earth via the negative (ground) cable. This may sound weird because most extension cords and what not have a third wire, known as the ground wire, inside of them. I will not be explaining it's purpose unless someone really wants me to

Now. Lets say you have an aquarium sitting on a big ceramic block (ceramic is an EXCELLENT electrical insulator). The aquarium is filled with brackish water and lots of happy fish. Then, for what ever reason, someone drops a positively charged cable in to the water but NOT the negative cable. The water may have a slightly higher voltage reading (if you were brave enough to take one) but the fish would be perfectly fine. Since there is no source to ground the water will not even get charged. Now lets say Johnny fish keeper comes home and sees the wire dangling in his aquarium and runs over to take it out. If he were to grab the wire by it's insulated cover and not come in contact with the water he could remove the cable with no problems. Not let's say he dove his arm right in to the water to grab the cable... Well, electricity just found it's path of least resistance to ground and will now travel through Johnny's body and in to for earth for as long as Johnny holds that cable and is still touching the ground thereby completing the circuit.

I hope everyone understands my logic, I know I am a bit obtuse in my thinking sometimes

I am not going to 'proof' this post either. At least not right now. I am also leaving out alot of small details, I'm just sick of typing Feel free to ask more questions or w/e if you want. I'm no electrician but electricity is sort of my career -after all it is power engineers who make it in the first place

Best,
Joe

 

[fish_4_all]

I had one pop in a fish tank and one in a snake cage. Neither the fish nor the snake died and the snake cage was grounded. As for how safe it was, it is electricity. The nice thing is, some heaters now have fuses that pop before the heater can electrocute you. Emergency shut offs are nice also.

Glad you are ok and didn't hurt peanut. The worst thing about electiricity is the fact it will do what it wants regardless of what you do. A powerhead or any other electrical item could have caused a ground. I hate electricity just for that reason, totally unpredictable unless it is completely shut off.

I will see if I can find some of the automatic shut off ones I have seen that shut off with either being removed from the tank or if the inside gets wet.

BTW, I hope you already do this but a surge protector on all plug ins to the fish tank is always a good idea.

 

[Guest]

i do indeed =).

 

[hc8719]

[quote="AquaJoeAlso, you may be interested to know that water will not conduct electricity unless it has salt (or a similar mineral) in it. [/quote]

"umm actually from how i read this, isnt true, just fri at bio lecture, my prof was saying how fish can be electruced in a fish tank. even though the tank may not have "aquarium salt" in it, it does have salt, and other minerals, and chemicals that provide a path for electricty to travel, considering its tap water."

-Yup, it's true. Mineral content can make the water able to carry electricity which I did mention above.
Now. Lets say you have an aquarium sitting on a big ceramic block (ceramic is an EXCELLENT electrical insulator). The aquarium is filled with brackish water and lots of happy fish. Then, for what ever reason, someone drops a positively charged cable in to the water but NOT the negative cable. The water may have a slightly higher voltage reading (if you were brave enough to take one) but the fish would be perfectly fine. Since there is no source to ground the water will not even get charged. Now lets say Johnny fish keeper comes home and sees the wire dangling in his aquarium and runs over to take it out. If he were to grab the wire by it's insulated cover and not come in contact with the water he could remove the cable with no problems. Not let's say he dove his arm right in to the water to grab the cable... Well, electricity just found it's path of least resistance to ground and will now travel through Johnny's body and in to for earth for as long as Johnny holds that cable and is still touching the ground thereby completing the circuit. [/quote]

hold up, while it is possible to just put a positive wire in, you'd have to go out of your way to get a positive wire to be in the tank, and not the negative wire.

but you do believe me that you still can get electrocuted in a fw tank with NO aquarium salt? tap water is full of minerals and salts, which electrocity could travel through.
just like if your standing in a bath tub of tap water, and start dropping in live electrical appliances in, your gonna get elctrocuted, the water doesnt need to be brackish or have additional salt

 

[AquaJoe]

but you do believe me that you still can get electrocuted in a fw tank with NO aquarium salt? tap water is full of minerals and salts, which electrocity could travel through.
just like if your standing in a bath tub of tap water, and start dropping in live electrical appliances in, your gonna get elctrocuted, the water doesnt need to be brackish or have additional salt

Absolutely yes. Any mineral content in the water will in turn the water into an excellent conductor of electricity. Although "any" is a very broad statement, there are few exceptions.

Also, I would like to point out that the bath tub would be grounded, even if it was ceramic, via the plumbing

Best,
Joe

 

[JRagg]

Joe is more than correct. It's the same as why a bird can sit on a power line and not get killed. There is no path to ground.

A glass aquarium is a good insulator, and with an electrical current in it is pretty much acting like a capacitor. High voltage in there, but it's not traveling out... until you put your hand in.

 

[rkilling1]

wow, this topic has kinda went off topic, sort of. i just wanted to add that the information being posted is mostly refering to a DC circuit (ie positive to ground). in an AC circuit you have a positive a neutral and a ground in most cases. that being said, if the heater broke and the element was broke, the circuit would still be completed due to the positive and neutral being 'alive' inside the aquarium. the ground in an AC circuit is there to provide a means of protection. If the aquarium was grounded you would have less of a chance of being injured not more.

and JRagg, a capacitor builds a voltage by using an electro magnetic field, not by just having a voltage.

and of coarse, if anybody wanted to know more about electricity, there is plenty of info out there on the internet.

 

[JRagg]

That's what I get for being a mechanical engineer. Darn Electrical people.

 

[AquaJoe]

and JRagg, a capacitor builds a voltage by using an electro magnetic field, not by just having a voltage.

Just wanted to point out that capacitors hold and electric charge while the rest of the circuit is de-energized. They are used in items such as high pressure sodium lighting fixtures in order to provide an initial high voltage charge to 'ignite' or start up the end user as oppose to the unit drawing a huge current every time it needs to start.

Transformers are what 'step up' or 'step down' voltage. In other words turn, for example, 120 volts into 240 volts.

Best,
Joe

 

[CaysE]

Are you guys saying that if the heater broke and charged the tank water, that FishyPeanut could have been harmed even after unplugging the heater?

 

[Guest]

i highly doubt it. tank water will not hold a charge, like an unplugged television i had the pleasure of getting jolted by once by playing in the back of it with the cover removed.