Came home to a Black Dead tank!

[camellia]

WTH, I've had this same set-up for 18 months. I haven't added any additional equipment recently or pluged anything in that I know of on the same breaker. However breaker was popped this morning. I came home at 8:30 it appears (from Apex) breaker popped at 12 last night.

Everything was off, tank was dead, even my battery back up was out, dead! Thank God it wasn't colder last night the temp was at 71!

I have no idea to know when the battery back up when out it has 2 Jeboas on it but for a period of time unknown there has been no oxygen. Fish are ok that I can see, other hopefully are sleeping still, some coral stressed but most look pretty good. I can't see anything dead right now but tank is not lit yet either...

So all you electrician people out there why would this happen? The rest of the house is fine it was just the one breaker!

 

[crew]

my assumption would be that you are skating the line on the max for that breaker and a tiny, tiny surge that didn't affect the rest of your house popped the breaker on your tank.

 

[camellia]

I agree which is pretty wild because when I do water changes I mix my water on the same exact outlet with a strip electrical outlet and run an additional mag 9 and two mag 4's, have never had a problem!

I guess since I have no idea what else is really included on this breaker I should add a dedicated breaker do you agree?

The breakers is actually labeled bathroom!!

 

[porpoiseaquatics]

I've found that you can't go by what the label says. I went through my whole house and re-mapped my breaker panel so that I know what outlet, light, receptacle is controlled on what breaker. There's cases where half of a room is on a breaker and the other half is on another that isn't even close to the same area.

 

[ricky5415]

Or u can run a new separate breaker for the tank only

 

[crew]

Also - "Tank was dead" usually means everything in the tank died haha. Luckily it sounds like you won't have any or minimal casualties

 

[dball711]

Is it possible a heater may have caused the breaker to trip, had an issue with one doing that once.

 

[axio]

dball711;1067589 wrote: Is it possible a heater may have caused the breaker to trip, had an issue with one doing that once.

Was just about to suggest that. We get emergency calls on heaters doing that exact thing. Still may want to look into a dedicate breaker, but it is odd if you have never had it happen with turning all that extra equipment like you mentioned Debbie.

Also it's not always an option for most people... but if you can get your battery backup on different breaker then your main system some how that would give you another safeguard against a situation like this. That way if the breaker for your tanks kicks off the battery back up can still run.

Jakub

 

[camellia]

dball711;1067589 wrote: Is it possible a heater may have caused the breaker to trip, had an issue with one doing that once.

Good question!


They don't look broke and the tank has heated up to 73.9°. I'll unplug one and see if the tank still heats.
I run two smaller heaters rather than one large.

Lucky for me I bought a new back up Ehiem heater yesterday at Premier aquatics

All fish have been accounted for but I've got some very unhappy coral!!!

 

[camellia]

aXio;1067590 wrote: Was just about to suggest that. We get emergency calls on heaters doing that exact thing. Still may want to look into a dedicate breaker, but it is odd if you have never had it happen with turning all that extra equipment like you mentioned Debbie.

Also it's not always an option for most people... but if you can get your battery backup on different breaker then your main system some how that would give you another safeguard against a situation like this. That way if the breaker for your tanks kicks off the battery back up can still run.

Jakub

Agree with dedicated breaker and I have an electrician coming next week anyways for some other things at the house. You know Jakcub, I never thought about the battery back up being on the same breaker!!!

Considering I'm getting ready to put a big hole in the wall behind the tank, that's exactly what I'll do.
I'll run the battery back up to an outlet in laundry room. Thank you!!
I got the cutest little pipefish and blenny at your store yesterday as well as that back up heater, thank God.
Little fishes are doing great I'm sure they are cold though!

 

[camellia]

You're both right it was my newest Eheim isn't hot!

Oh how I love ARC! Hard telling how long it would've took me to figure that out!

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Up until New Year's (when I had houses flooding everywhere) I had these heaters on in their personal GFI, I guess that teaches me a lesson! I should have bought another one for the wet fans and heaters I was running at the rental and left my tank alone!
I couldn't see it from the front the front glass is still there. Do I need to worry about anything that has gotten into the water from the heater? Unfortunately I just did a large water change!


Can someone please pm me their phone number for a quick question.
I have an apex programming problem that I don't understand. Thank you!!

 

[camellia]

This is what I had them on and I'm getting ready to put them back on. Would this have saved the tank last night?

The info on the back, second pic.


I had an electrician run an additional 4 plug outlet during the setup of the tank. My thought process was to use these on groups of equipment so that rather than it tripping the whole tank it would only trip the GFI for that group of equipment. Also anyone with an apex knows that you're limited with the plugs and usually need something with multiple outlets to plug into the Apex outlet anyway...


So Rich, what do you think of my process and do I need to change it? Please, any electrical intelligent person chime in.

Feed back, information appreciated!

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[thanhreef]

It happened to my tank 2 months ago because of heater while I was at work. Fortunately, I caught it (dark tank) via wireless camera.

 

[drydock]

Also if you're running an Apex and a battery backup, look into setting up a specific program for a power outage. I have mine set so that everything except 1 pump and 1 heater shut off if there's a power outage - maximizes the runtime of the battery. That plus everything else that has been mentioned.

 

[shrimpy brains]

Hope all your livestock is alright! I hate heaters!

 

[mcphock]

porpoiseaquatics;1067556 wrote: I've found that you can't go by what the label says. I went through my whole house and re-mapped my breaker panel so that I know what outlet, light, receptacle is controlled on what breaker. There's cases where half of a room is on a breaker and the other half is on another that isn't even close to the same area.

The outlet in my garage and the outlets in my master bathroom are on separate sides of the house, but the same breaker.

 

[camellia]

Cut all lights off for today and reduced fliow drastically while gradually warming tank up. It's at 75 now.

Crazy but could see a lot of black ??? back on right, back side of sand bed. Got out a flash light and there's a ton of dead brittle stars!! Don't care about loosing them but VERY worried they are also dead in my rock! I've got way to many for a major die off!

Looks like my Sun Corals and most of my SPS, didn't make it (((

Sorry Crawfiord, guess I should have said 1/2 dead tank



Totally don't trust breaker box labels, learned that the hard way. Nor do I EVER trust ANYONE to tell me, the breakers off... Been hit too many times swapping out appliances, fans to microwaves... I've probably swapped out 50 appliances in the last 10 years at rental houses...

 

[catgirl29]

Oh no! So sorry to hear that you had losses! I've got a little baby sun colony going. When it gets bigger, I'd like to give you some of it.

 

[camellia]

Janelle, your such a sweetheart!

Corals look SO bad! I think the heater containment poisoned my corals. They did not look this bad this morning now my beautiful deep Pink Millie colony is white, Garf, torts, JF Lepto ... white, evetything is sliming really bad and brittle stars continue to pile up on sand bed!

As you can see from picture, the heater was cracked on the back side that was against my acrylic sump, evidently even the best BLOW!
This BLOWS!
Anyone know anything besides WC? I've left lights off, reduced flow and temp is just now reaching 76!

 

[rdnelson]

Skipped some of the post but since you asked.... And since others may benefit......

When a breaker trips, 90% of the time it is doing what it is supposed to do, disconnect the load under an overload condition. Always look for what caused the problem first. However, on occasion the breaker may have weekend over time.

Understanding how breaker works may help you figure out what happened. A breaker senses a build up of heat over time. A short circuit will result in a rise in current approaching infinity in milliseconds. That created ls a lot of heat very quickly. The heat will cause the breaker to trip quickly. But an overload generated a smaller amount of heat. It may take hours before enough heat is generated to cause the breaker to trip. That is why code requires that a continuous load (runs for 3/hours or more) is limited to 80% of the breaker rating.

So, if you are loading the circuit beyond 80% it is just a matter of time before enough heat builds up to trip the breaker. Sometimes if it has happened long enough and often enough it will weaken the trip element causing the breaker to trip before it should.

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