Almost nominated myself for a Darwin award (a.k.a. God bless GFCIs)

[fkshiu]

So I decided to do my annual cleaning of the Eheim 1260 return pump. I run it externally and have it hooked up to a couple of true union ball valves so removing it is a cinch.

After putting it back I notice an odd hum. While it's still running I start messing around with it including tapping the volute (I run it without the outer cover to cut down on noise). After about 5 taps - PSSSSSSHHHHHHHHH! - the whole freaking volute pops off and I get blasted in the face by gushing saltwater. My initial reaction was to try to replace the cover, but the water pressure made this impossible. After a few seconds I shut the upper ball valve (what I should've done in the first place) - less water, but it's still gushing (WTF?!?).

Panic starts to set as more and more water fills the sump area - I can't figure out where the water is coming from. Meanwhile, my wife is only about 10 feet away obliviously clicking away on the computer as I'm re-enacting a scene out of Das Boot. My pig-headed male pride stops me from screaming for help. It's only after a few more seconds of flailing around like an epileptic chicken (felt like hours) that I shut the sump side ball valve (DUH!).

I look around and see that the rat's nest of wire next to me is covered in salt water. I also realized that the everything has shut down - the GFCI had tripped like it was supposed to. The bottom of my sump area is sealed to contain such mishaps and I'm kneeling in about 2 inches of salt water. Also sitting in the salt water with me is one of the powerbars I had knocked down in my panic(!).

All told I lost about 3 gallons of water, so no big deal. The bigger deal was how close I came to existing in the past tense. Of course when I told my wife what happened behind her she just rolled her eyes like she usually does as my tank catastrophes. But the bottom line: Don't even think about running a tank without GFCI protection.

Oh, and the odd hum? It went away.