GFCI Tripped...it could have been worse

I got a call at 7:30 this morning from Grove & Platt that the system was shut down.  GFCI Breaker tripped at 7:00pm last night.
All the fish were either dead or looking dead or at the surface.  By the time I got there 1/2 hour later, you wouldn't have known anything had happened actually, besides a few dead fish.  Lost the Flame Fin Tang (bummed) and Scopas Tang, the Yellow Tang was looking in pretty bad shape, had himself propped up (at 7:30 he was on his side with a dead shrimp sitting on him) and the Angel (from Dave, originally Sone's) was camped out behind the rockwork, looking rough, but he was up and swimming around after a little bit.  The Blue Tang, Engineer Goby, Green Chromis, and all 3 clowns are looking good.  All the corals look fine.
Water tested clear for Ammonia, N, P...
I found some salt deposits near the box for the outlets, and originally I figured that was the problem, some water snaked down the back of the tank and wicked along the stand and dripped on it.  Gotta fix that issue, but I don't think that was the problem.
Also I will be switching the receptacle order so that the GFCI is downstream from the other outlet.
I went to put a few things away and noticed the Reeflo pump did not sound quite right.  Kind of like a intermittent swishing sound.  Then I touched the pump - and almost burned myself.  I couldn't keep my hands on the fins for more than 1 second, and I can actually still feel it.  So after running for just over 2 hours, then thing is probably nearing thermal overload.
I talked to Chris at Reeflo and he said that it's either a bad bearing (in which case they will send me a new pump) or there is something on the impeller or housing causing the pump to work too hard.
Looks like I will be taking the afternoon off now as well.  I hope it's just something in the impeller or I am not going to sleep well at night.
Anyone have a battery-backup air pump or know where I can get one ASAP?  Can't afford another incident.

 

I'm guessing lack of O2. Seeing as the clowns were at the surface on their side gasping for air. The Tangs seemed to take the brunt of damage, the 2 smallest ones died, the Yellow was nearing death, and the Blue seemed fine as I'm guessing that organs shutting down based on size, smallest first?

Also all the starfish (big brittle stars and baby stars) were all out and about and looking dead, as soon as flow returned they perked right up I guess. One of the peppermint shrimps was out and dead, another was hanging out on the big Monti Cap and looked fine.

I googled x4 vortices and I cannot figure out what you are referring to.

I'm assuming that water flow at the surface is all that really matters here. Air pump creates that and will at least keep O2 at high enough levels to maintain survival until the temp drops out.

Oh yeah the temp was about 75 when I got there and about 76.5 when I left 1.5 hrs later so there was probably a drop below 75 which isn't too bad.

The other thing I considered is that there is another receptacle above the tank which is not downstream from the one below and I could put a powerhead on that one, then if the bottom one trips at least there will be circulation. Then the full-building outage is the condition that would need battery backup.

 

That's what I wondered. What kind of battery backup do you have? When you say x4 do you mean an MP40?

FYI on my tank at home I run just 3 Koralia's and nothing else and I have no oxygenation problems so your solution should be fine (i.e. no airstone needed)

 

Last night I took the pump apart and there was nothing clogging it. Talked to Reeflo again and they said it's the chicken and the egg. There could have been a surge that caused the GFCI to trip and one or the other caused damage to the motor, which is why it is now overheating. Or, something could have gone wrong with the motor which caused the thermal overload to trip, which in turn caused the GFCI to trip. At this point, impossible to tell. So they're going to replace it.

In the meantime, I determined by using 2 receptacle testers that the receptacle above the tank, which is also GFCI, operates independent of the one below the tank - neither of them trip each other. So I scraped some coralline off the back of the tank (which is almost 2mm thick in only 6 months!!!) and put a power head in there and zip-tied the power cord to the plenum (since the glass is so thick) and put it on that outlet. Then I found a receptacle on the wall by the tank that was not GFCI protected and plugged the Reeflo into that. So now, if the Reeflo trips itself out due to thermal overload, the power head in the tank will still run, keeping water moving well across the surface. Then, when the motor cools off, it should in theory ("usually" is what Chris @ reeflo said) kick back on.

So that's how I have it set up now, then I'm going to pick up a spare pump from Matt N hopefully today and swap them out until I get the replacement pump. That will give me peace of mind if nothing else.

All the remaining fish are still alive, eating, and doing well.