Why you should always invest!
 

Yup, invest in good quality equipment along with GFCI, and take the time to create drip loops!

a little reminder from RC

Thats happened twice in town here as well within the last 5 years... Twice that I know of. Thanks for spreading the awareness!

I think the photos really make it hit home for some people.

What I find disturbing is that the original poster notes that his parents did have a fire alarm and that it never went off.

I guess I should stop putting this off :)

What is recommended? Is a 15 Amp GFCI to little or okay?

Hanging 900 watts of t5 on two tiny wires above an open top tank with a eurobrace that is just big enough for the light to fit inside is perhaps also a bad idea. Lol. Lucky dude there. GFCI was a must for me. 3-pack at HD is like $40.

Wow thats scarry. Going to pick up a couple GFIC today for both my tanks. Thanks for posting that!!

If possible, divide your equipment amongst several GFCIs and even several circuits so if one trips your tank won't die.

:jaw: OMG! That's horrible. Although I'm guilty, I even have a GFCI sitting beside my tank, still needing to be installed :redface:

or even somthing like this:
http://www.budgetlighting.com/gfx/tower/30338-018_B.jpg

I have 3 seperate 15A circuits each with a gfci on them. I plan to have lights, return pump, and powerheads spread out seperately on these to avoid losing all my circulation.

good picture, people should look at the pictures in the link

Just get a GFI breaker for your panel then your entire house is protected.

Thats not the best way to do it. Trust me I know from experience. last week I had a total tank crash because 1 of my GFI triggered and shut down all of my pumps and powerheads. The 1 with my lights was fine. Go with a minimum of 3 and place your pumps etc on more than 1 circuit. My house was safe, but my tank was dead.

There is more to that story than the OP is leading on to. I am still a firm believer of not having a GFCI on my tank. If what he says is true and his parents could still hear the electricity flowing in the plugs and the breaker never tripped after dumping a full tank of SW on the plugs.... then there is a bigger issue than a GFCI saving his tank/house. To me it sounds like his house is not grounded (which a lot of older house are not). If your house is not grounded then a "GROUND fault circuit interrupter" is not going to do anything. Now an Arc Fault breaker or plug may have saved his tank because they sense an arc and would have turned off the power but you cant use them with HID lighting (dont think he was but regardless). When you pour a bucket of water on any plug, GFCI or not, the breaker will trip. GFCI's were designed to protect people NOT to protect for fires. I have seen this argument many times on various sites (http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...ht=GFCI&page=2) i work with the electrical trade as well as have many friends that are electricians, one of which has also has a saltwater tank, and never will we put one on our tanks. The only way i would put a GFCI on my tank is if i had one GFCI plug for every plug on my tank with the hot jumpered to each plug so they dont trip all the plugs out at once. @ $15/GFCI and 30 plugs on my tank $450 on plugs is a lot of money to spend on that. I know there is someone in Calgary that has a GFCI dead front on their tank and still gets shocked when they put their hand in the tank, this tells me that their house is not grounded. So that dead front is not going to do anything. For all of you that have GFCI's on your tanks has the power ever gone out when your not home and come back on but your tank never did because you have to reset you GFCI after the power went out? I know i would not want my tank shut down all day just because the power flickered.


Im not going to argue this subject there is lots of different opinions on this subject that is just mine. Anyway very tragic for that guy it always sucks to see that.

Thats a good point, also a GFI breaker will not protect your whole house it will only protect the circuit that its running on.

That's fine and while I agree that a GFCI may not have helped in this case I'm glad to have all my tank equipment protected by GFCI receptacles. Fire hazard or not, at least I've taken the precaution to protect my safety and that of my family as far as shocks go. Nothing is foolproof, but if code requires GFCIs in any wet location, bathroom for example, why would I not take the same precaution with my aquarium?

Some GFCIs are designed not to reset automatically in the event of a power outage or circuit breaker trip. If I'm not mistaken these are generally the plug in adapter versions designed for use in a shop with power tools - you don't necessarily want your circular saw or belt sander starting up on their own after you go reset a tripped circuit breaker.

I'm fairly certain that most receptacle type GFCIs do not need a manual reset if there is a power failure or circuit breaker trip. Unless they are tripped by an actual ground fault, they should power up again automatically when power is restored to the circuit. I've just tripped and reset the circuit breaker on two of my GFCI receptacles and both of them worked without having to reset the GFCI itself. There are a lot of products out there these days and to speculate or opinionate about GFCIs is not in the best interest of safety.

With respect to a house not being grounded, if you research the subject, adding a GFCI is actually one of the recommended solutions for making a non grounded circuit safer. Since the GFCI senses current differential between the hot and neutral, a ground wire is actually not needed to make it trip. If you are the path from hot to ground/earth, the GFCI will save your bacon even though there is no ground wire in the circuit. Although your house wiring may not have a ground, earth is still there and there is the potential for you to become the path to it.

Absolutely correct GFCI makes sure the hot and neutral are balanced and will trip when they aren't. The ground wire is negligible in a GFCI setup. I believe that in this situation it would have shut down the system and saved a lot of headaches. The system should have tripped the breaker (any breaker) anyway because the saltwater in the outlet should have overloaded the breaker causing it to trip. The house could be old and still have a fuse panel (often seen in older American houses) and people do stupid things like bypassing the fuse with some metal (pennies) thus they never trip. Breakers aren't perfect either I have seen breakers glow red on a circuit that is shorted out and not tripped. The problem with GFCI is as they age they tend to trip with out enough of a differential. There is no fool proof way to fix this but multiple circuits on seperate GFCI's checked monthly is probably the best.

I learned something about GFCIs today, thanks guys... RC is unfortunately down at the moment. :lol:

I have a separate GFCI which was installed just for my tank, with a spearate 15amp breaker in the panel. I run my controller on it, which runs the lights, heater, etc.

My place also has GFCI/AFI, in some rooms, the room my tank is in being one. Those breakers are code here in new homes for some rooms, I think bedrooms. My tank/office is in what would have been a small 3rd bedroom.

The arc faults are very sensitive, and I would not run all my equipment on them, plus as mentioned they dont fire halides.

Plus I always try keep any electricals away from the water, in another area, compartment or whatever and always with drip loops. Not much else I can do. About as safe as possible but when dealing with electricity and all our water, I imagine accidents can still happen, {as with most things in our lives}.

Good tip! Definitely something easily overlooked that couldve saved his tank for cheap! He's lucky his entire house didn't go up!!

...also a little surprised that no forum trolls suggested that his tank caught fire because he was housing tangs in a 40 gal.

I installed mine today in five minutes. $12.00 at RONA.
http://img2.timeinc.net/toh/i/a/elec...ptacles-00.jpg

ROFLMFAO! TOO FUNNY! :lol:

I'm really considering getting a GFCI for my light (which is sitting on glass above my tank) and the fan (also sitting on the glass)... are there GFCIs that just plug in? I mean, I don't need to wire a breakout for one, do I (I can just buy one premade)?

Yes, plug in GFCI adapters are readily available these days. Just make sure you get one which does not require a manual reset in the event of a power outage, many of the plug in ones are like that. Check my earlier post where I provide info regarding some of these which are designed for the shop & power tools. I can trip the circuit breaker, reset it, and my receptacle GFCI (a la Snaz) will power up again as well without a reset. I also have a single plug in type adapter which needs to be reset every time I unplug it, so it would also need a manual reset in the event of a power outage. It's a handy little device for plugging in wherever you might need GFCI protection, but I wouldn't use it for any of my tank gear.

This is how I have my system set up for both safety and redundancy:

- 3 separate GFCIs over 3 separate circuits. I don't have all my eggs in one basket.

- The circulation pumps are hooked up to a CanTire UPC. If there is a GFCI trip on the circuit with the pumps on them (or a power outage) the UPC will kick in.

- One of these days I'm getting a Lee's battery bubbler as a final bit of redundancy should the UPC run out of juice as well.

reply
 

I wouldn't just get GFCI for that, I'd get a new system for your lights. I learned the hard way not to put lights on glass tops no matter how thick. I came home from work one day to find my 250 watt pendant along with a dual 65 watt pc in my tank. I didn't have a GFCI, and it didn't even trip the main breaker to my condo. It could have been catastrophic, but I guess someone was looking out for me.

I am looking for a 70W reflector that can be hung for this exact reason. I don't trust the glass, even with just a 70W, but I have no other option at the moment. So I'll be looking for one of those plug-in GFCIs that mike mentioned (thanks for clearing that up mike, I must have missed that) in the mean time.

I'm actually attempting to find a 70W spotlight-style fixture... barring that I might have to have one built (and a reflector for it... and I might as well lens it while I'm at it :lol: ).