Smoke!!!!!

[bigpaul]

One of my Rio power heads that I have in my sump decide to go out and smoke up the house. I was doing some maintenance when my lights started to flicker and all of a sudden I smelt smoke and saw smoke coming from inside my stand. I opened the door to see what was happening and I could see the pump sparking and smoking from inside the sump. Totally scared the poooopppppp out of me. Should I leave the tank off and do a 30 gallon water change out from the water that is inside the sump? or do you think the water is fine and I should let it be. So glad I was home when this happened.

 

[jessesoto33]

WOW! wonder why your power didnt shut off thats dangerous

 

[BeanMachine]

Should be safe if its unplugged... good thing you were home that's no bueno. Sparking and smoking under the water? Crazy.

 

[Six2seven]

oh crap. thats crazy do a quick water change in the sump. you dont know whats in it, i wouldnt take the chance.

 

[ndrwater]

oh crap. thats crazy do a quick water change in the sump. you dont know whats in it, i wouldnt take the chance.

+1 Glad you were home!!

 

[bigpaul]

I looked in my sump with a flashlight and there is all kinds of stuff on the top of the water so I will definitely do a water change. But of course my trash cans are at a friends house because we are installing his 150 gallon so it looks like I will be doing the water change with some 5 gallon buckets.
Thanks for the help everybody.

 

[jessesoto33]

Holy Smoke! had to say that LOL glad you where home also

 

[bigpaul]

I definitely need to find out why the power did not turn off.

 

[Six2seven]

is it on an apex?

 

[eulalio flores]

That goes back to my post on how important it is for gfi protection. But 2nd that that should have happen is your breaker should have tripped. Get u stuff liked at bro, .and if someone had there hand in the tank at that time. Pm me if u wish bro iam a electrician.

 

[MrSandman]

Run some poly filters too in case you can't contain everything to the sump.

 

[bigpaul]

Last night I took as much water out of my sump as I could and did a water change. I added some poly filter and changed the carbon and today everything looks good. Later today I will change the carbon again and do another water change. I must have checked on my tank 50 times between 100 and 630 this morning......time to get some sleep.......

 

[happaman]

One of my greatest fears. I've heard this about Rio pumps since I got in the hobby 16 years ago.

I had a power strip burn up once; literally burned up. Burned up my pan world pump too. Thankfully my smoke alarms were working. Didn't trip my GFCI so I changed the outlets, bought quality strips and redistributed the load on 3 circuits lol.

 

[eulalio flores]

That's the best thing u can do. And the best thing to do is to protect u and your family. New is better then old breakers.I been doing residential/commercial work for 16yrs and breakers should be replace at least every 10-15 yrs for the safety factor, they seem to fail at this time frame