So this morning I came out to my living room to get ready for work. As I walked in I smelled something electrical burning (I spent 26 years as an electrician in the navy, I am very familiar with that electrical fire smell). I frantically checked everything that was plugged in then went to the aquarium. I narrowed down the location of the smell and started feeling for anything overheating. I touched the bottom of my Finnex heater controller and was giving a very small shock (compare it to sticking a 9v on your tongue) and a burn. Once I found it I quickly unplugged it and made sure it cooled down before I left for work. The controller is almost 10 years old and should have probably been replaced a long time ago. I have as of a year ago kept a spare heater on hand but now I will keep a spare controller and heater on hand because you never know. This size heater and controller for large tanks are not readily stocked at any of our LFS and it could be devastating depending on when it fails and the temperature. So learn from my experience today and keep equipment that is not stocked locally in a brand new spare equipment bin. I know almost everyone of us reefers has a bin full of used crap we will probably never use again (but what if) so why not keep new spares. I will also as of today be replacing my heater and controller every 2 years. Here are some pictures of what could have turned out much worse, I was very very lucky this happened on a weekday and I was up super early to get ready for work. A couple of hours and this could have been much much worse.
Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
Reply With Quote