Disaster!!!...

[ShaunW]

I'm so sorry! You wife is a GREAT woman! Talk about thinking in a difficult situation. The fire had to be put out immediately so she without a doubt did the right thing IMO.

I have frags for you when you decide to rebuild.

Cooking rock requires water without light, flow, a skimmer present (but not nessesary) and time. I would cook for as long as possible.

 

[meschaefer]

I'm so sorry! You wife is a GREAT woman! Talk about thinking in a difficult situation. The fire had to be put out immediately so she without a doubt did the right thing IMO.

I have frags for you when you decide to rebuild.

Cooking rock requires water without light, flow, a skimmer present (but not nessesary) and time. I would cook for as long as possible.

Solbby-

Chemistry questions go to Randy Holmes Farley, lighting questions go to Sanjay, and of course bacteria questions go to MRs own Solbby.

I have been reading alot on the "cooking" process and will start it this week. I figure I easily have two months if not longer before my new system is in place. I hoping to have the tank up and running by October.

The word on the street is that the purpose is to change it from a Algae driven system, to a baceteria driven system. And that the bacetria will be more efficent in removing nutrients that have built up in the rock, as they are able to get deep into the pourous structure of the rock. Is this a reasonable theory or explination, at least as far as the baceteria are concerned.

 

[loismustdie]

This is horrible news Matt. My offer still stands...You're free to take pieces of whatever you want from my tank after the upgrade.
I feel really bad about this because there is the one thing you actually did overlook and I completely forgot to mention is my electric work and my solution to power strips while you were here.
It's a weather proof GFI protected set up with a hospital grade isolated ground to protect my controllers. I know a lot of you have bad opinions on gfci's and I agree with those views. My main system pump is plugged directly into the wall on an ordinary outlet on it's own circuit. All of my other equipment is ran off of these boxes I made. In the event of an accidental gfci trip, my main pump still runs along with my skimmer and the Dialyseas has it's own hospital grade isolated ground for shock protection.
Guys, there was a Dateline a few months ago where they talked of how dangerous power strips are since there is no regulating them. Many fires to go along with it. Many UL stickers are fakes. All of this was brought up in the thread Fred started a while back. Now that it hit closer to home, it may open a few eyes. I'm not saying the issue Matt had was directly due to a power strip, but I would want my power strip to shut down in the event something goes wrong. Especially something like the pump for ATO, which any one of our tanks would do fine without for 24 hours... or long enough for us to get home to fix it. I do feel a main pump is a life support system and shouldn't be plugged into a GFCI... just my opinion.
I was picky enough about this stuff that I bought all supplies from an electric supply rather than the crap at Home Cheapo.

 

[loismustdie]

...

 

[ShaunW]

The word on the street is that the purpose is to change it from a Algae driven system, to a baceteria driven system. And that the bacetria will be more efficent in removing nutrients that have built up in the rock, as they are able to get deep into the pourous structure of the rock. Is this a reasonable theory or explination, at least as far as the baceteria are concerned.

IMO, it is mostly to starve off algae that have adhered to the rock. Bacteria will take over during the cooking process and an equilibrium will occur where the bacteria are more dominant than the algae in utilizing available nutrients (phosphate). Hopefully all algae will disappear/die. So it is a reasonable theory.

HOWEVER, once you put the rocks back in a full reef system the equilibrium can shift back to algae dominance so just because you cook the rock doesn't mean that you shouldn't be vigilant to keep algae in check when the reef is functioning. You basically just starting with a clean slate.

 

[ming]

My understanding of cooking the rocks is starve the rocks of any food/light. At first, the algae will die from lack of light, after water changes, the rocks slowly release any buildup of nutrients/phosphates that they absorbed through diffusion. If there is any life on the rock, it will help by trying to dig into the rocks for food, therefore helping the rocks release more nutrients.

 

[meschaefer]

This is horrible news Matt. My offer still stands...You're free to take pieces of whatever you want from my tank after the upgrade.
I feel really bad about this because there is the one thing you actually did overlook and I completely forgot to mention is my electric work and my solution to power strips while you were here.
It's a weather proof GFI protected set up with a hospital grade isolated ground to protect my controllers. I know a lot of you have bad opinions on gfci's and I agree with those views. My main system pump is plugged directly into the wall on an ordinary outlet on it's own circuit. All of my other equipment is ran off of these boxes I made. In the event of an accidental gfci trip, my main pump still runs along with my skimmer and the Dialyseas has it's own hospital grade isolated ground for shock protection.
Guys, there was a Dateline a few months ago where they talked of how dangerous power strips are since there is no regulating them. Many fires to go along with it. Many UL stickers are fakes. All of this was brought up in the thread Fred started a while back. Now that it hit closer to home, it may open a few eyes. I'm not saying the issue Matt had was directly due to a power strip, but I would want my power strip to shut down in the event something goes wrong. Especially something like the pump for ATO, which any one of our tanks would do fine without for 24 hours... or long enough for us to get home to fix it. I do feel a main pump is a life support system and shouldn't be plugged into a GFCI... just my opinion.
I was picky enough about this stuff that I bought all supplies from an electric supply rather than the crap at Home Cheapo.

This is good thing to mention, about not using cheap powerstrips. We run alot of power through them, and for the most part they can't handle it. I only use heavy dut powerstrips on my tank. GFI on non essential life support equipment is good idea as well.

Although, my fire was not started due to a power strip, every other tank fire that I have ever heard about was due to a cheap power strip.

Chris - did you wire your "power center" up yourself, or did you find that pre-made?

 

[loismustdie]

Chris - did you wire your "power center" up yourself, or did you find that pre-made?

DIY.

Although, my fire was not started due to a power strip, every other tank fire that I have ever heard about was due to a cheap power strip.

It should also be noted that it wasn't only cheap power strips mentioned on Dateline. Sadly enough, it was mostly the more expensive ones. The companies had cheaply made crap, slapped a UL sticker on it and put it in a box. This is why my friend told me that price is not an indicator on the authenticity of a UL Listing. What is worse is there are still huge question marks on most, if not all power strips and surge protectors, including those sold specifically for computers.
I don't know if you guys are familiar with the power strip that is also a wave maker. I had one of those go on fire in my basement. It made no effort to shut off. I was lucky enough that 1) it was in the unfinished portion of my basement and 2) I happened to be there and was able to unplug it when I noticed it was on fire.
Again, in 7 years, I have only been to 2 fires which clearly started in the stand of a fish tank. This is not common. But like we always say... better safe than sorry. And as I'm sure Jon Hale will agree with... you don't want a fireman with 100 pounds worth of tools hanging from him anywhere near your tank.
You guys pushing fans in your sump are holding a lot of humidity in your stands, where your power strips are located. You are the ones I worry about the most.

 

[fritz]

As Chris mentioned price has nothing to do with build quality or materials.
In my VERY layman's opinion your new setup Chris is how it should be done. If that isn't an option everyone should go out and buy a metal powerstrip. You want the entire thing to be metal with the plugs being the only plastic thing and looking like the outlets in your wall.
I bought an all metal strip by Belkin from HD for $10. Should an arc event happen I don't have to worry about it melting the powerstrip and burning my house down. It's still a firehazard but it's one less thing to worry about.