Serious dangers of salt water tanks and any tank

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

Mike, based on all your info, I'm as good as dead

with your wiring skills, you should have been dead years ago

Steve

[Seriak]

You could also use an inline heater.

[Canuckgod420]

Originally Posted by burgerchow

Ok, I'm no electronics guy, but if there was a short in the tank and the water is "live"' wouldn't the fish be dead first, before you get shocked?

That clearly wouldnt happen, the fish arent grounded. Its like birds landing on power wires, no death, but if they where to contact 2 wires at the same time....poof, cooked bird.

[mike31154]

Originally Posted by MitchM

Mike, depending on how easy access you have to your plumbing and if you have a controller on your aquarium, you could run a small coil of PEX into your sump and plumb in a home hot water line using a recirc pump.
A guy over on RC did this successfully.

Yeah, thanks for that info. I actually read that thread the other day. There've been similar projects over the years, even some where people did the opposite, trying to cool their tanks with coils of piping submerged in the sump, then run underground aka geothermal. Seems like you need to be careful with that kind of set up lest you cook your system by not siziing the thermal mass properly. Can get complicated.

If I ever get my basement sump thing started I may consider something like that. A couple of years ago I tiled the floor at my living room bay window & put electrical heating under the tile. I've been considering putting a run of that under the next project. That is, build a stand, put electrical heating on the surface where the tank will sit, then some nice granite tile. Set the tank on that (and/or sump) & voila, under tank heating. Just not sure if the weight of the tank would be an issue in possibly crushing the wiring below eventually.

But again, I digress. Stay safe with the 'lectrics. Ditch those electric float switches that run your ATO & go with gravity feed & mechanical float valve.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

with your wiring skills, you should have been dead years ago

Steve

Zactly! That's why I don't take these threads very seriously. I zap myself once a month, minimum. My family knows not to be within 3 feet of me when I have any type of wiring in my hand lol
I did get careless and start a fire, but that was contained and the sloppiness corrected. Sort of.

[Zoaelite]

Might not be a bad idea with a smaller tank Mike, the only problems I could think of are; The system breaks, you then have to move the tank to repair it OR the heater develops a hot spot, which in turn creates a temperature differential in your glass possibly shattering it.

Having granite tile under the tank would help prevent the second one by heat distribution.

You also then lack the monitoring capacity of a heater, you do get those nasty wires out of your tank though!

[Doug]

Originally Posted by mike31154

Ditch those electric float switches that run your ATO & go with gravity feed & mechanical float valve.

Would not most of those be 12v such as the Osmolator.

Totally agree in keeping the heater head above water. Something I have done for many years. Only use Ebo and my policy has been to replace them after a couple years with a new one.

[mike31154]

Originally Posted by Doug

Would not most of those be 12v such as the Osmolator.

Yes, you are correct. I'm getting a bit anal. Low voltage is fine, but I've seen some DIYs where folks are wiring electric float switches with 120 VAC running thru them.

[Doug]

Oh ya. I have seen some duzzies over time. And built by lfs to boot. I know this as I owned one many years ago.