GFI...Hate them...Love them

[Rob Top]

So I get home from work and after I get the kids to bed I head down stairs to work on the 220. As soon as I opened the basement door I could smell things where not right. You know the smell. Turns out the discharge to the skimmer was leaking and dripped right one a pumps plug. there goes the GFI and about 50 gallons of water over flow the sump. The anti siphion hole on one of the returns was clogged by a snail. I HATE GFI's What a mess. Get the pumps running and start the clean up. As my wife and I are working down there the timer for the lights turns off and the corner she is in is kind of dark. She asks for more light and I grab my shop light go to plug it in. Don't look to see if the plug is wet, just plug it in. I get zapped. And good. Pop the GFI goes and I am alive to type about it. I love GFI's The zap ws good enogh it burned my fingers 8O
Not the way I wanted to spend the eveing for sure.

 

[Len]

Hey Rob, funny thing is this happened to me just about a week ago too (skimmer leak went into an in-line GFCI). It didn't wreck my GFCI though. Mine apparently tripped pretty much upon contact with the water, so there wasn't anything burned.

Glad you're okay 8)

 

[K9coral]

tip: battery operated flashlight like a Maglight. IMO.

Glad to see you alive to type your story. 8O (I hate getting shocked)!

 

[bleedingthought]

Just installed my GFCI receptacle today! I just hope it won't "freakshly" trip on me for no reason!

 

[Anonymous]

Another Ranger Instructor who has a tank was cleaning his 180 aggressive the other day and knocked his computer fan out of the hood into the tank. Porcupine and triggers and bamboo shark all doing the twitching dance. So what does he do? Immediately reaches into teh tank to grab the fan. Doesn't take a genius to figure out the outcome. ZAP!!! He is fine but learned a good lesson. All his fish are fine, but won't be needing any curling irons any time soon. Sometimes reactions are just to quick for the brain to realize what the hand is doing.

 

[Anonymous]

I don't use them. I like living on the edge. 8)

I dropped a PC light into the tank and the connector went under...of course I tried to reach in and grab it and I got a good shock. There was all this zapping and crackling and blue bolts coming off the surface of the water. :lol: I just grabbed the cord and pulled out the light.

 

[Anonymous]

Living on the edge could mean that you are not living if you are not careful.

 

[bleedingthought]

Ouch!

 

[Anonymous]

My magnetic MH ballast would quite often trip the GFI whenever both the timer tripped and turned them off, don't know if it was some residual current that didn't get discharged quick enough in the transformer or what, either way I decided I didn't want to plug the lights into the GFI anymore.

 

[gregb1]

A shocking story, you always were a bit of a live wire.