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jcg432
08-23-2008, 08:26 AM
I have a fan above my system that I thought was fully secure. It has fallen into my system and shocked all my animals and plants in my system.

I know that a couple of this died because the skimmer after that day has been picking up more skimmate the usual.

I know snails & crabs died for sure I have been diging them out - Weird none of the fish were affected but plants were but they are opening up slowly.

I have been doing water changes to clean any secretions that the dead organisms are letting off.

My Questions is has anyone had this happen to their system before? Do the plants fully recover from this or should I start preparing for the worst?

boyesreef
08-23-2008, 10:14 AM
wow, im sorry to hear of your horrers! if you dont mind me asking, what voltage are you running? im running a 12 volt system at less than .2 amps. one of the fans fell in and all it did was destroy my fan and power inverter. the fish didnt seem to care, and my snails and the crab are all happy.

Skurvey Dog
08-23-2008, 10:48 AM
I know that's got to be very frustrating JGC. :no: Water and electricity definately do not mix. On a positive note, if one could call it that, nothing worse happened. Glad you had a gfc outlet. I know very little on the properties of electricity, but was thinking maybe the other animals were "grounded" being on a physical surface, while the fish were not? Hopefully with some TLC everyone else will slowly heal and totally recover with some time. :love!:

bbl_nk
08-23-2008, 04:05 PM
Yikes! With AC its hard to say. The fish most likely had some effects from this but may not be bad or something you'll see right away. I think Skurvy Dog had it right...everything grounded in the tank would have the stray electricity channel through them and basically fry them. The fish should be safe unless they were on the substrate or touching a rock. I'd just look out for any strange signs of behavior with the fish, swimming sideways, bumping into things, etc. They do have electrical recptors they use to sense where they are and movement of other fish around them (that's how the schools move in sync).

Best bet is to use 12VDC when possible as its less damaging at low amps. Remember its not the voltage that kill its the amperage.

CarmieJo
08-23-2008, 05:50 PM
jcg, I am sorry to hear of this disaster but very glad that nothing worse happened. I am going to go right downstairs and make sure my clip on fan can't fall into the sump in the event it gets knocked off the edge of the cabinet.

rayme07
08-23-2008, 06:29 PM
jcg432 sorry for your losses and hope your tank heals i cant say anything else that someone else had already said so good luck. :)

dillan
08-23-2008, 10:50 PM
i once smashed my heater with a piece of live rock and shocked myself pretty good but the fish came away just fine
actually i still have one of the fish that was in the tank and that happened about 5 years ago.

CarmieJo
08-23-2008, 10:54 PM
i once smashed my heater with a piece of live rock and shocked myself pretty good but the fish came away just fine
actually i still have one of the fish that was in the tank and that happened about 5 years ago.

Everyone please take this as a word of caution!! You need to run your tank through a GFI circuit!

dillan
08-23-2008, 11:20 PM
i do now i'll tell u that lol

Skurvey Dog
08-24-2008, 12:15 AM
Everyone please take this as a word of caution!! You need to run your tank through a GFI circuit!

Great jumping Jehosephat CJo! Thank you VERY much for making that correction for me. In the above post I referred to the safety outlet as a GFC. (Dunno, possibly should of read Ground Fault Conductor. Yeaoooouch!) :o

CarmieJo
08-24-2008, 12:40 AM
Great jumping Jehosephat CJo! Thank you VERY much for making that correction for me. In the above post I referred to the safety outlet as a GFC. (Dunno, possibly should of read Ground Fault Conductor. Yeaoooouch!) :oLOL I didn't even catch that! I just think it always bears repeating!

dand355
10-08-2008, 08:31 PM
wow, im sorry to hear of your horrers! if you dont mind me asking, what voltage are you running? im running a 12 volt system at less than .2 amps. one of the fans fell in and all it did was destroy my fan and power inverter. the fish didnt seem to care, and my snails and the crab are all happy.

x2 killed the equipment but not the fish ..... it's hard wacthing your pets die sorry to hear

saltaddict
10-08-2008, 08:55 PM
I had my yellow tang develop HLLE. The good folks here told me how to check for stray current and I found lots of it. When all was said and done I fixed the problem and babied my yellow "Sunshine" back to heath. Her HLLE healed nicely.

I run fans above the fuge and such. At Home Depot and Lowes where they sell zip ties they also sell stick on zip tie holders. I place several of these, (in the event one comes loose), and zip the fans to them. If you have a wooden stand you can screw a tiny screw through the middle of the zip tip holder for extra security and then you will have a hanging fan.

Sorry about your tragedy.

Good Luck
Rhonda