The aftermath of a failed wavemaker!

[Beefyreefy]

At minimum, it’s not a completed loss, so that’s good I guess… Over a 2-3 day period my coral all got very angry, closed up, and lost color. After basics chemistry and temperature testing failed to find an issue, I went searching. My initial thought was metal contamination because I’ve encountered that before. At some point I went to wipe the algae off of my grounding probe and received a significant shock. Traced it to a failed wavemaker that was buried under some rock work. I had hoped to have removed the problem before permanent complications, but despite many 50% water changes, the water fouled and clouded, and Iost like 20lbs of chalice, montipora, acropora, a fox face and a hawk fish. Pics of the aftermath below… Fortunately, it was not a total loss. Somehow most of my euphillia, scolies, cynaria, softies, shrooms, and all my tangs and other fish survived. Either way I’m somewhat heartbroken. My tank was packed with very large colonies, and all the large ones died. I’m thinking in the future that a once in a while check of wires in the tank is prudent. Definitely the last time I put a wavemaker in a hard to examine area. Consider my misfortune a cautionary tale!

Before the failure full tank shot:

After the crash:

 

[blaxsun]

That... sucks. Painful to see all those beautiful corals toast...

 

[Lavey29]

At minimum, it’s not a completed loss, so that’s good I guess… Over a 2-3 day period my coral all got very angry, closed up, and lost color. After basics chemistry and temperature testing failed to find an issue, I went searching. My initial thought was metal contamination because I’ve encountered that before. At some point I went to wipe the algae off of my grounding probe and received a significant shock. Traced it to a failed wavemaker that was buried under some rock work. I had hoped to have removed the problem before permanent complications, but despite many 50% water changes, the water fouled and clouded, and Iost like 20lbs of chalice, montipora, acropora, a fox face and a hawk fish. Pics of the aftermath below… Fortunately, it was not a total loss. Somehow most of my euphillia, scolies, cynaria, softies, shrooms, and all my tangs and other fish survived. Either way I’m somewhat heartbroken. My tank was packed with very large colonies, and all the large ones died. I’m thinking in the future that a once in a while check of wires in the tank is prudent. Definitely the last time I put a wavemaker in a hard to examine area. Consider my misfortune a cautionary tale!

Before the failure full tank shot:

After the crash:

Sorry for your loss but thanks for sharing your experience to help others.

 

[bee144]

Do you use a GFI outlet?

I just had my electrician come out and upgrade the outlet to GFI and added a second GFI outlet as well. That way I can run items that are outside the water on one GFI outlet and items in the water on the second GFI outlet.

From my understanding, stray voltage should trip the outlet, and then my apex will alert me so I can take immediate action.

 

[Beefyreefy]

Yes funny thing is I’ve always known that this kind of thing can happen but my tank up to this point has been very resilient. I thought I would have been able to stop this kind of thing before it progressed but I was wrong.

 

[Beefyreefy]

I don’t use a gfi. I was under the impression that the grounding probe would prevent this type of problem but I was wrong I suppose. Plus, I travel for work (usually just overnights) so the thought of the outlet tripping the whole system has always scared me.