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.