[sunoka]

Originally Posted by Lampshade

GFCI's are very good, they trip when there is an imbalance between the line and neutral, meaning that power is going elsewhere(ground). They will not trip if you have current flowing from the 'line' to 'neutral' prongs. This is where you can have issues with them, especially since lots of plugs for our aquariums only have 2 prongs. Use a grounding probe in your tank to pick up stray voltage, it will still trip the GFCI because of imbalance, but it won't be in your tank. I've only had issues with one pump before, and took awhile to find what was tripping the GFCI, turned out that i was flowing water through the pump faster than it could pump it (it was for a canister filter that was flowing from the Display down to the sump).

As many people have said, drip loops are good, and keep the powerbars out of anywhere that will get them wet, water evaporates, salt doesn't :S. I have one powerbar mounted right under mt DT for all my sump equipment, and another on the side of the canopy for lights/powerheads. Good quality equipment is good too, there's someone here who had a house fire caused by a cheap timer powerbar(can't find the thread, it's here somewhere).

You nailed it...the best thing to do is designate the one or two circutes you are going to use for your equipment and GFI protect them at the panel with a GFI breaker this will eliminate some of the GFCI outlet trips.