FIX YOUR MESSY WIRES!! disaster averted!

So i was woken up today to a very bad smell of plastic burning and electical noises... not good. My parents were downstairs and quickly unplugged everything from the wall. Seems like all of the sudden my overflow piping stared leaking (slowly) and made its way onto a surge protector.. Now, it is my fault that i had the surge protector in a spot where this could happen. Im just a little scared knowing what could have happened. aka, house burning down because of my ignorance. Thank god for my parents being there... long story short, dont have messy wires and use drip loops!!!!! Im lucky i am only out a surge protector and not a house, possibly my life.

anyone else have some almost horror stories?

 

I was at the hardware store just last night picking up a PVC elbow for my refugium and they had a plug-in style GFCI outlet rated 1200 or 1800 watts marked down from $28 to $15. I stared for about 4 min and thought, now if I don't get this and something ever happens, I'll be kicking myself forver if I live thru it. I grabbed it.

Glad your OK!!!

 

Glad your ok! I zip tied all my wires together.

 

Im usually really anal about messy wires lol but the tank is alot more complicated than say a surround sound setup and the wires were the last thing on my mind..Ive been meaning to organize everything and i guess i just waited too long

 

Thought of this when setting up my system. I put the surge protector on the top right of my stand and my sump on the left handside. Only water that would come in is if i have a leak in the middle of my tank haha

Lucky , very lucky

 

Here is my setup.. Before & After wire management.

Before:




After:

 

biocube now thats cleaning some stuff up!

I had my sump overflow on me while i was asleep and the power strips where on the floor so i either heard the popping or smelt the burning while i was asleep on the couch but i caught it all just after 5 gallons overflowed on the floor.

 

Now there's an upgrade!!!

 

Sweet wire management BCube!

 

That's why I STRONGLY suggest everyone installs a GFCI outlet for their tanks. I had one of those GFCI plugs for a normal outlet. Then I had a tank crack. Water poured straight into the outlet, and nearly caught fire (I flipped the breakers when it started smoking really bad).

It's an easy fix (especially before you set a tank up), so in my opinion it's a must!