Fatal Aquarium Tricks or Electrical Safety - Part 1
Okay, we all know water and electricity don’t mix. And we’ve all been accidentally shocked before. You get a little tingle, startling and a little unpleasant but so what? As an electrician, I’ve seen people who would never think of getting near a 240 volt circuit, but do absolutely crazy things with a 110 volts. The simple fact is 110 volts can kill and sometimes does. And being sick, weak, elderly or young has nothing to do with it.
To understand how a shock can be fatal, we must first understand the concepts of conductors and insulators. A conductor is a substance that will let electricity pass through itself. An insulator will block electricity. Now all the materials in the universe will run the entire spectrum from near perfect conductors to near perfect insulators. Copper is a very good conductor. That’s why we use it for electrical wires. Most metals are good conductors. Water is a good conductor.
On the other hand we have insulators. We say insulators have resistance to electrical flow. Most plastics are good insulators. Air is a pretty good insulator. Your skin is an insulator - but not a very good one. That’s why you feel a shock. A little bit of electricity is passing through your skin - enough to cause a surprising but mild discomfort. Enough to make you yank your hand away.
Now think abou your body. An adult male body is typically about 65% water - an excellent conductor. Your skin is essentially a container holding together a whole lot of wet and juicy organs. If you cut yourself, you see that your skin is pretty moist, too, underneath its dry exterior. So if electricty can find a path around your dry, insulating, outer skin you can recieve a large, injurious or often fatal jolt. Our skin takes a lot of abuse. We get cuts, scratches, scrapes and more serious rips and tears to our outer fabric. All of these are perfect entry points for a fatal shock. Are you sweaty? Wet? A great path for electricity is down through one liquid filled sweat gland or maybe a few hundred of them.
Once your skin is breached, you are in a world of hurt. Electricity travels through your body from its point of entry to the nearest point it can exit your body and go to ground. In an aquarium, this can be from one hand in the aquarum, up your arm, through your chest and down the other arm which is in contact with a conductor such as a metal frame or a concrete wall. Electricity traveling through your body will actually heat up and burn the tissues it’s passing through. Not a pretty thought.
So the whole point of this article is not to scare you. You’ve been using electricity all your life and you know that our electrical appliances, tools, and installations are pretty safe. But they are only as safe as you are. Use common sense and have a healthy respect for electricity. It can be fatal.
In our next post, we’ll discuss how to make your aquarium safer from electrical faults and problems.
2 Comments » 
We made it. A new year, a new beginning. Let’s make this one better in everything we do!
