This is extremely funny. Actually its not all that funny, but it is now.
Yesterday, I got the big bright idea to do some work to my teeny tidepool sump. I was pulling trays out of the filter area and inspecting the crushed coral that Ive had in there for...well..quite some time now. I was going to pull out the equpment to give it a good scrubbing. The return pump, the UV sterilizer pump, the powerheads, the skimmer pump, everything. I had pulled out the skimmer and turned off the return line when something went very very wrong. With the insane amount of wires that I have hooked up to 3 daisy chained surge protetors, I dont know how it happened, but in slow motion, I witnessed the end of an extension cord (the other end plugged into the wall socket) with a few pumps hooked into it fall into the sump...With my hands still in it! After the cord fell into the sump, I sat there like an idiot staring at the cord, fully suberged, right next to my hand. I thought for a minute of how I could get the cord out of the sump without touching it. You know how you get when something completely unexpected happens..you turn into a sloth. And in the nanosecond of thoughts of saving the cord and not pulling my hands out of the sump, a huge jolt of electricity hit me. It was extremely painful and the strangest thing ive ever felt for that matter. As I was being electrocuted, one of the pumps that was hooked up to the cord exploded. When I say exploded, I mean exploded..Like holy-hand grenade stuff. I was blown backward, either from the shocking, the explosion, me trying to pull my hand out of the sump, or all three, into my kitchen table. I hit the thing with enough force that I actually broke one of the chairs and toppled the table. The breaker threw and I had enough sense to unplug the extension cord from the wall before flipping the breaker back on. The aftermath, like I said, looked like someone had threw a hand grenade in my sump.
Strangely, and thankfully enough, I am ok and uninjured. How my hands did not get fried off is totally beyond me, but other than sustaining a splitting headache for a few days, I am intact. My critters survived also, I had the return line turned off. So..moral of the story is this: When dealing with electricity and saltwater, do not half-ass your work. Get everything fixed up and out of the way with cable ties and do your electrical work the right way so that you do not start a housefire or electrocute yourself like I did.
If anyone was wondering why I was missing for a few days...here is your reason.
Yesterday, I got the big bright idea to do some work to my teeny tidepool sump. I was pulling trays out of the filter area and inspecting the crushed coral that Ive had in there for...well..quite some time now. I was going to pull out the equpment to give it a good scrubbing. The return pump, the UV sterilizer pump, the powerheads, the skimmer pump, everything. I had pulled out the skimmer and turned off the return line when something went very very wrong. With the insane amount of wires that I have hooked up to 3 daisy chained surge protetors, I dont know how it happened, but in slow motion, I witnessed the end of an extension cord (the other end plugged into the wall socket) with a few pumps hooked into it fall into the sump...With my hands still in it! After the cord fell into the sump, I sat there like an idiot staring at the cord, fully suberged, right next to my hand. I thought for a minute of how I could get the cord out of the sump without touching it. You know how you get when something completely unexpected happens..you turn into a sloth. And in the nanosecond of thoughts of saving the cord and not pulling my hands out of the sump, a huge jolt of electricity hit me. It was extremely painful and the strangest thing ive ever felt for that matter. As I was being electrocuted, one of the pumps that was hooked up to the cord exploded. When I say exploded, I mean exploded..Like holy-hand grenade stuff. I was blown backward, either from the shocking, the explosion, me trying to pull my hand out of the sump, or all three, into my kitchen table. I hit the thing with enough force that I actually broke one of the chairs and toppled the table. The breaker threw and I had enough sense to unplug the extension cord from the wall before flipping the breaker back on. The aftermath, like I said, looked like someone had threw a hand grenade in my sump.
Strangely, and thankfully enough, I am ok and uninjured. How my hands did not get fried off is totally beyond me, but other than sustaining a splitting headache for a few days, I am intact. My critters survived also, I had the return line turned off. So..moral of the story is this: When dealing with electricity and saltwater, do not half-ass your work. Get everything fixed up and out of the way with cable ties and do your electrical work the right way so that you do not start a housefire or electrocute yourself like I did.
If anyone was wondering why I was missing for a few days...here is your reason.
I thought maybe with that amount of electricity it would work like a poor mans Electro-shock therapy. But sadly *knock* *knock*, my melon is the same 
