Aquatics Vs Electiricty

Be surprised how often i electrocute myself in work lol, today while setting up a header tank for storing heated water i went head to head with a 200w (unbeknown to myself) cracked heater. whats the worst electrocution you've suffered at the hands of our hobby?

something similar with a broken heater, stuck in my hand got a nice jolt and stuck a piece of bogwood through the small tank on the rack above the tank i was working on... not a great day, lot of cussing went on

Considering that my time in this goes back 40 years to a time of really crap heaters etc etc my own experimental filtration, own made computer controlled water quality systems (and in the 70s that meant loads of dodgy cables everywhere ) and lighting systems, I've never had a single jolt from fish keeping.

A few what could have been close calls, but no jolts.

I have had a few quite nasty jolts from things like repairing a Teas-Maid and was once the earth leak pathway from my guitar amplifier (that felt really really spooky Man).

ian

yeah ive done it with an amp as well. forgot to unplug it before messing around. im really quiet poor at common sense matters. when im topping tanks in work i get distracted by a customer, the tank overflows and some drippage finds an adapter or extension lead. thats usually how i do it. cracked heaters are now the new line, wonder whats in store for me next.

For guitar/amp related shockages it's hard to beat Paul Gilbert, the lead guitarist of the poodle haired metal band Mr Big. He used to play his guitar with a plec (the guitar pick, not the fish!) attached into a Makita drill. Two or three times he got thrown into the air during live gigs when the whole get-up shorted out

Some people disconnect the earth on amps to stop the hum, so when I used to gig I would never let anyone near my amp and would use my own PA. It is when your guitar amp is un-earthed and the microphone is on a different earthing loop and something goes amiss that things get really sticky.
In my case of getting a guitar amp zap, it was an old 50s valve amp and a small strand of wire had come astray and was touching the chasis (the amp did not have a nice printed circuit board.....just wires and valves floating around inside).

On the fish tank side, keepers should really unplug all equipment before placing hands in the water....ummm....as if those of us who preach that actually do that.

But clear instructions to help save lives should be to tell keepers the minimum:
"NEVER hold onto a radiator or tap or house plumbing or anything with an electrical earth whilst dealing with the tank".
"NEVER attach an earth wire to equipment that does not come with an earth wire and never earth the metal frame of a metal framed tank" (the last was common practice in the days of angle iron tanks....and people thought it was a good safe thing to do!!!).
"Read the instructions on the equipment" (that just seems too obvious)

There are, of course, many other safety and health things with fish keeping. And, yet again, even us who are qualified safety and health assessors do not always follow them in our own tanks (and we have 2 such people in our house )....but we should.

ian