So my family had just finished watching a movie the other night and we are sitting around chatting before we get ready for bed, when we hear this “poof,  poof” sound. My wife says it sounds like the dog (who is outside) coughed or something. One of my kids gets up and walks by the tank and says it smells like “that electrical stink”. I opened all the doors to the stand and don’t see or smell anything, then go down to the basement where my sump and most of the equipment reside. There is a faint haze in the air and the definite smell of an electrical fire. What I found was the somewhat makeshift wiring on my frag tank light apparently had enough salt creep (and it was not really very much mind you) to cause an arc between the prongs on one of the plugs.  What we heard was the two arcs.  It wasn’t enough to even damage the light, only to char the plug and the plumbing right above it, but it got my attention none the less.

Let this serve has a healthy reminder for all of us with tanks to take a moment to check/clean excess salt creep from around any electrical connections.

I might add that I am a former safety compliance person, and while the extension cord you see  is not a good idea, it had no bearing in the cause of this problem.  My tank has a titanium grounding probe and is on it’s own dedicated GFCI circuit.  Those things should keep me and my livestock from getting shocked, but unfortunately have very little effect on “across the line” arcs.  The only protection from arcing (and potentially a fire started by said arcing) are the new Arc Fault Interupter Circuit breakers (aka AFCI’s).  A bit costly, but something I may look into in the near future.

Happy (and safe) reefing!