No Fish yet. Going to be gone for a week and a half at the beginning of aug so figured I would wait until after then for fish.

I swear this hobby hates me. The other hydor koralia power head has stopped working.... Didn't kill everything so that's good.

I took it out and put it in some vinegar. Hopefully a good cleaning will get it back working again.

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The hydor koralia is dead. Cleaned it out, put it back together... And nothing. Silence. Did give me a bit of a shock when I went to move it..

I have lined up a couple of jaebo wavemakers from a fellow members so that should replace the missing powerhead.

All the corals still seem to be doing ok with the single powerhead. The innovative Marine powerhead is pretty good so far especially for the price.

I did get around to setting up my skimmer, never had a skimmer before so excited to see what the difference it will make in the tank. How long should I run it fully open for? Some things I read say days others say weeks to a month.

Plan is to add fish after my last long vacation in August. For the time being I will look to add some pods and stuff like that to up the biodiversity of the tank.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...4a35aaaea2.jpg

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Are you using a GFCI? And if you are, are you using a ground probe? I gather you are not using either. You would not get a shock if you were.
If you use both, next time a powerhead fails it will shut off. Do not use a ground probe without a GFCI. Doing so will send stray current through you!!
I wonder if stray electrical current in your water has been an issue.
Hopefully things get better for you now that you have removed the second bad powerhead.
Run the skimmer wide open for a few days, after you first clean it with vinegar, then slowly try to tune it. It will probably not do very much right now as you do not have fish poop.
Unless you are going to source some mysids or copepods, do not waste your money on pods.
Tigger pods are only a quick snack in our tanks.

It didn't shock me in the tank. I had cleaned it and put it back together and just plugged it into a kitchen socket as it was sitting in the sink full of water to see if it would start up again. I don't think it was doing that in the tank. If it was I think my 2 remaining snails would have been dead?


Good to know about the pods. I will just slowly add some more corals and cuc until I get some fish.


Ok. I wasn't sure if it was a few days or a few weeks. I could probably go a few weeks until I have some fish..

If you don't have a GFCI, it won't trip if something leaks current into the tank.
If you don't have a ground probe, it won't affect the inhabitants as the current has nowhere to go, unless you ground it with your body.

In either case, look into protecting yourself with at the minimum of a GFCI for the whole tank.
I run 13 of them because I want each piece of hardware covered individually without tripping the whole tank.
And I have a ground probe in both my skimmer and return chambers.

Later. BBQ and Beers

I should definitely grab a grounding probe at least. Installing the GFCI might be more difficult since I would have to move the tank in order to get to the outlet.


It does look like they have GFCI power bars. Probably easier for me to get one of those. At least that way I have some protection.

Nu uh. I wrote 'not' to use a grounding probe without a GFCI!!!
Breakers are only meant to trip when they get hot.
A GFCI senses an imbalance between line and neutral and only then does it trip. This will protect you if you stick your hand in the water.
Only having a ground probe will cause any stray/induced current to flow because you're giving it a path. Now when you stick your hand in the water you'll get zapped.

Either use just a GFCI, a GFCI and a ground probe, or forget I said anything and use neither.

I picked up a GFCI powerbar and got that setup. That should give me some protection at least for now.

OK
Now your dilemma is this;
Everything that's plugged into it is protected, or rather you are protected from them.
But now, if 1 of those items decides to poop the bed, all of them will shut off when that power bar trips.
So be aware of this.

It's good you have protected yourself though. A powerhead may not hurt you, but a heater would do serious damage or even stop your heart.