terrible morning...:'( UPDATE!

this is so stupid! maybe my meter is just gargabe. when i turn my power strip off it goes to 0. when i unplug certain things from the power strip it drops down a little with each piece. could it just be a faulty power strip? but still why would that be leaking voltage?

 

Maybe a lot of your equipment is leaking? Try one thing at a time to see what it is.

 

well, replaced the power strip with a diff one, and it went from 7 to 3.5, then when i remove the heater it goes from 3.5 to 1v.

so i guess i need a new heater.

 

What meter do you have? Is it set to ac current? Is it brand new? They always come with crappy batteries, so try a new one.

 

its a crappy cheap one. i have a 300$ one but it is in my car at work. i will use that monday. but after taking the heater out i tested it in a bucket and it was reading almost 2v.

now when i test the water it goes to 0. but if i angle the probe just right and push hard enouhg into the grounding spot it will go to like 1.7v but most of the time it says 0. idk what to think.

 

it says 0 b/c the connection with the ground is not good enough maybe?

 

Sounds like your heater was the biggest problem. That extra 1V your are reading could just be the inductance from the powerheads/pumps/etc (doesn't mean they are broken). 1V isn't much, but it sounds like you need a grounding probe.

Edit: Change your meter to DCV and see what it says. AC would mean, like in the case of your heater, you have current leaking in directly. If you are getting a DC reading that would be from the flux coming out of the motors. (Don't know anything about aquariums yet, just a science teacher so I could be off-base on this).

 

So why did they just die all of a sudden?

 

The leak could have occurred just recently. The electricity messes up their lateral lines and cause problems with the nervous system.

 

now my tang is breathing heavy... ! no please not my tang

the fish store double checked my parameters and they are all good.

what do i do?!