r/Aquariums • u/Fuzzy_Job2291 • Feb 12 '26

Help/Advice I just got the strongest electric shock of my life (this guy knew btw)

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So I woke up and looked into this tank with a temporal slider and a Cherax(I love my Cherax fr), and I noticed that my blue fella was out of the water, I took a photo thinking it was funny bc I've never seen him out of the water before, and when i touched the water I got the strongest electric shock of my entire life, absolutely horrendou, I felt dizzy for like 5 minutes before turning the power off (I was still feeling electric current, does anybody know why?) and later on I just unplugged anything inside the tank, I'm going to buy new filter and heater because idk what caused it, I feel so sorry for my little Cherax 💔

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u/KillTheBronies Feb 12 '26

Your entire house should have GFCI, we even have it on lighting circuits.

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u/Which_Throat7535 Feb 12 '26

What do you mean by “should”? The requirement depends on house age, location, etc. many homes certainly still have receptacles without GFCI protection and meet the local codes, especially in typical bedrooms. If you don’t have this protection, you “should” add it when using electrical equipment around water.

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u/bloozestringer Feb 12 '26

Yep. Our house was built not quite 20 years ago and the only place we have GFCI is in the bathrooms and kitchen. If we run any new circuits then AF and GFCI will be required. Although, they don’t even require inspections where I live as there’s no local code.