Boy did I goof!

By Joe Berberich

If you all remember a few weeks ago, the weather dropped into the thirties for a few days. Well, the first night of the near-freeze, I went out to put duct tape around the door of my fish shed to help keep in the heat produced by the little heater we bought at the first T.B.A.S. Fish Show. In fact, we'd bought two heaters at the show auction, but my wife stormy said after using them both for a couple of days, one quit running. At the time, with other things on my mind, I forgot all about our little heaters. When I entered my big shed to get the duct tape, I saw the "bad" heater still sitting in its box. I decided to see if maybe the heating element had burnt out. I'd get the instruction/part book...maybe I could find if something else was wrong. It was worth checking.

So, I plugged that sucker in the socket and to my surprise- it work fine! Then, I remembered that these heaters had an automatic shut off feature. That MUST have been why that heater had quit working that first time.

Now, thinking that my heating problem was whipped, I plugged the second unit in and set it next to the other one. The heater kicked in and immediately a fuse blew out in my fuse box panel. That's OK...the fish shed just has an extension cord with a six-way outlet.

Standing out there in my shorts and T-shirt, I'm starting to get cold. I unplugged one heater, replaced the fuse, grabbed the duct tape and flipped the reset button on the six-plug outlet strip. I closed the shed door, sealed the edges with the tape and went into the house.

--- WHEN I FLIPPED THE SWITCH I SHUT EVERYTHING OFF! ---

Lights air heaters pumps everything! When I discovered my mistake the next morning, I started looking at my fish. I'm happy to say that I lost only 20 fish that would have cost retail about 45 dollars. Since I had bought most of their as little ones, the cost really wasn't that high.

To say that "haste makes waste" is a very true statement. No matter how long you've done this or that or how many times you've done it... You can still mess it up. Be careful. Always check twice. No reason for anyone else in the club to make a stupid mistake like I did. Boy, did I goof!

Originally published in the Newsletter of the Tampa Bay Aquarium Society, February 1997