Make sure you have the proper safeguards on your equipment!

[davelin315]

Hey everyone, I recently had one of the scariest experiences in my life. I have joked in the past of ballasts sending up smoke signals, but this is a serious one. The tank I had in one of my daughter's room recently caught on fire. I'm not sure the reason why, but it definitely originated in the light, either the bulb itself or the wiring for the bulb.

 

The tank itself is a 15 gallon system with a modified Eclipse hood on it. The fan I installed to remove heat burned out awhile back and so I simply vented it and noticed that there was no condensation as a result. The light consisted of a workhorse ballast that used the wiring from a Coralife/ESU retrofit kit I had. The ballast had already burned out, and when I replaced it I used the wires again, including the waterproof endcaps. The bulb was one that was bought from Hello Lights, a TRU bulb that they annually offer at $15 each. The entire tank was run through a GFCI extension cord and the only things on it were the light, the stock Eclipse powerhead/pump, and a 50 watt heater.

 

The fire started somewhere inside the housing of the light. It looked like the fire actually began inside the wiring itself that led into the endcap. The entire thing has been submitted to my insurance company for testing so I'll refrain on making any judgments on where the fire really began until I get the results back.

 

When I think about the possible consequences of this fire, it makes me question whether I want to have any tanks in my house again, but I'm coming back to wanting to have them, but I am double and triple checking things to make sure they are working correctly.

 

Luckily, the following things made a very scary and terrible situation not nearly as bad:

 

1. Working smoke alarms in the hallway outside the door: these went off and alerted me to the fire itself.

2. Fire extinguishers that had recently been checked to make sure they worked: this let me put the fire out before it spread.

3. The tank was on a dresser: I was able to slide it away from the wall and prevent the wall itself from catching on fire.

4. An escape plan for the kids: I was able to run them out of the house since we had talked about what to do when my kindergartner came home with a fire safety kit from a fire station visit. This was not for them, but for me as I ran around in a panic.

 

This is the only kids' bedroom that doesn't have its own dedicated smoke alarm, so I count myself very lucky that my daughter wasn't asleep with the door closed.

 

So, check your safety equipment and also your equipment itself. Don't play around with wiring unless you know what you're doing (a friend of mine lost his entire home to a fish tank light fire several years ago), and make absolutely sure that you have a plan. This is a wonderful hobby and I hope to decide to continue with it, but be aware of the risks we run each day. The lights that we run, the heaters, the number of plugs we put into a single strip, all of these things create a situation in which we could be putting ourselves into danger. I know that on this one I tried to take as many safeguards as I could have, but in the end, none of them worked, whether the fire is my fault or the fault of the equipment, I count myself very lucky that I didn't lose my house or worst case scenario ever, one of my children. My family owes the fact that we are in our home still with everyone healthy, despite it still needing some cleaning, paint, and replacement furniture, to a couple of hours spent checking smoke detector batteries and fire extinguishers.

[bk_market]

Wow this is scary. I need to check out my lighting fixture now.

[Black Mammoth]

The circuit that the fish tank was running on...does it have an arc fault protector? I'm going to guess that there was some build up that was causing the wires/lights to arc. There are a few short comings of arc fault protectors, but I was just wondering. The fire could have been sparked on the first arc fault. If that was the case, there wasn't really anything you could do. Even if you don't have an arc fault protector on the line, the GFCI should have tripped. Did it trip? It may have after it was too late though.

 

Well I'm glad that you guys made it out OK.

[BeltwayBandit]

If the fire started in the wiring here is what *might* have happened. When you rewired the lamp you managed to break the conductor in the wire. (either full or partial) I'm guessing it was partial, so you still got current flow but since the conductor was partially broken, think of it like a throttling valve. You still had to push the same amount of electricity through that point to fire the lamp. This caused the conductor to overheat which in turn melted the insulation and began a slow smoldering fire. The other option is that the conductor was completely broken and you started arcing and that is what melted the wire and started the fire. Just my guess.

 

I know how scary that can be, I came home to a wiring harness that was in the process of melting down once. I figure I was about 20 minutes away from a full fledged fire on that one. I'm glad that no one was hurt.

[Sugar Magnolia]

Dave, again....glad no one was hurt. I'm sure it really frightened the girls though. Have you decided what your future plans are?

[Guest tgallo]

rewiring fixtures and electricity in general is no joke, it scares me to read the posts out here some times/diy'ers, be careful.

 

If you're not sure, dont assume it will work and be safe for the long term.

 

This may be a hobby, but electricity is not.

 

Glad your family is safe Dave.

[HowardofNOVA]

Dave

Again my heart goes out to you and your family, I'm sure one scary event!!

 

Hopefully, will see you Sat!!!

[Caribbean Jake]

Sorry to hear that. LMK if I can help.

I sent you a PM..

[davelin315]

Hi Guys, the wiring itself was simply pulled from the old ballast and reconnected (didn't mess with anything inside the wiring at all, simply rewired the ballast and the fire was nowhere near there). The GFCI has tripped in the past, but I can't tell if it tripped this time or not (by the time I was up there I simply pulled the plug without checking). Anyway, I'm gimping around right now - sprained my ankle pretty badly a week ago Friday at school, so I've had lots of time to think about the future for this hobby. The lone survivor that I can see from that tank fire is the Royal Gramma, my wife thought he was dead a week ago but she saw him swimming and darting around in my live rock in the basement and my daughter has been asking where her fish are, so I think I'm going to stick with it. I've got all that stuff in the basement that I need to use, after all...