Alert!!! Check your cords & power strips!

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Autumnsky

Moderator
Site Team
Joined
Apr 4, 2012
Messages
16,742
Location
Northern Colorado, USA
Just today had a little fire in a extension strip plug. (Someone happened to be standing a couple feet away when this happened and prevented any serious damage.)

It was one I used when I bring home new fish, like an extension cord for my air pump and little heater, which goes into a bucket over night and whoever lives, gets to go to QT tank.

It was plugged in but not being used at the time of the incident. But since it was plugged in, it was live. And water and electricity are dangerous when combined.

But in general it was a little fire because the strip got accidentally pushed out the back of the cabinet and in line with a over flowing drip, drip, dripping HOB filter case. This happened because the filter pad was blocking the flow.

* In general look for accidents waiting to happen.

* Plugs are securely plugged in all the way, not loose or showing metal prongs.

* Including considering mounting the strips at the side away from possible dripping / spilling. Accidental movement of the plug strip.

* Also the number of plugs plugged into the wall.

* Check if your power strip is like extension cord strips without a fuse link inside to help stop a fire risk or a more expensive one with the feature to shut off if there is a safety issue.

* And to check about installing a GFI on the circuit whenever water is involved.

* Keep a decent sized Fire Extinguisher nearby

* Know where your breaker box is and how to shut off power and it also helps if the label for what the breakers go to is posted and accurate.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Public service announcement. :eek:

Anyone please add anything else you might know which could help keep us all safer. (y)
 
Last edited:
Scary stuff Aut. Glad you caught it!! I've had a couple myself. Similar to your overflowing hob, while identical... happened twice with the same filter, luckily the power cords were pulled away to the side. Just flooded the fish cave a bit.
Worse was.... sitting on my couch having coffee and I caught a smell of burning plastic coming up through the heating vents. Ran downstairs and could smell it, couldnt see smoke or pinpoint cause. Keep in mind there are 12ish filters and 10 air pumps. I used a infrared heatgun/thermometer and located an air pump running around 120° while the rest were at 90ish. Sure enough the bottom was melting. Lucky lucky.
 
Mine was inside the cabinet sitting atop a container I use to hold spare foods/misc. - not mounted though, but that cabinet space is open in back, no wall board, and with the moving around of the 2 food holding containers underneath, it must have plunked back off to the floor behind.

So yes, reason why I wanted to share my dumb move is to help save us all, lol!
 
Back
Top Bottom