Skimmer could have almost started a fire

So I'm sleeping here at 2:30am, I'm in a deep sleep but I wake up easily. I wake up to this really strange loud noise. I decide to go check out my tank and it was my skimmer. It lostca little more than half of it's water and the water was going into the tank and the water is near overflowing. If that water overfowed it would have landed on the extension cord. The skimmer was also running pretty much empty and didn't have any water covering the outtake tube. I started filling water in the skimmer then I just decided to unplug it and find out what went wrong later.

I'll give yall an update later but right now I'm going back to bed

 

I would consider a ground fault plug for you protection. aka: GFCI,

 

Wow. I agree, get a surge protector.
Could it be from when you adjusted the air tube earlier?

 

Nerver underestimate the importance of having drip loops in your cords. Glad you caught things in time but there is no doubt that many gallons of salt water, salt spray, and salt creep around live electrical outlets has the potential for badness. Take every precaution that you can.

 

It could have been but all he did was make a slight adjustment to the air valve. I'll have him look at it this morning

 

Ok I'll talk to my dad about it as I have no idea what that is. I've also been trying to figure out away to organize the extension cords because their on the floor and it just looks very cluttered

 

What is a drip loop. And yea I'm soooo glad i caugt it in time. If I wasn't a light sleeper it could have been a very very bad day today

 

Here is a picture of a GFCI outlet. This is only one example, but most I have seen look very similar. You should have these already in your kitchen and bathroom. These are a MUST when using electricity around water. You can buy these at hardware stores and can be used to replace your existing regular outlets.

 

yea, he said we have one in the bathroom, which is right across the hall from me. loioks just like that one too

 

This is a picture of a drip loop. Basically, if water runs down your electrical wire, it will drip off at the lowest point and not get into the outlet.



The image below is a cord with no loop. If water were to travel down this wire it would go straight into the outlet. That would be BAD.