calling all electricans

[Skimmerking]

Originally Posted by bauder1986

Keep this in mind to as well when you are calculating the amp of your fixtures that they draw. 110 watts of lighting is 1 amp. so a 250 watt MH is 2.3 amps of steady draw and then you have to keep in mind how much draw your ballasts have when the fire up.

Now keep in mind that when electricians wire in a house they run a parallel that runs no more that 12 amps max! Every plug in a parallel is considered one amp and every light is considered 1 amp and smoke detectors are considered .25 amps. Pot lights are considered .5 amps since most of them are 50 to 75 watts max. but the moral of the story is that your tanks is most likely not the only thing that you have plugged into that parallel so you may have more draw than your tank such as your TV which probably draws around 3 amps steady. and your lights draw 8.2 amps steady...so yah that is pushing it.

But yah i would replace the old 15 amp breaker with a new one just to be safe and run a dedicated GFCI 20 amp breaker to the tank with 12/2 wire and leave it at that.

ya that is what I will do run a 3 plug system just for the lights. one plug parallel for each timer or I may just get thou build in timers the actinic, night lights and vortex will stay on that line to make it easier

[Aquattro]

3 MH and a big screen will trip the breaker. I know, i just had to run a separate circuit to my tank for this reason. Also take into account your heaters and pumps. You really can't run a tank your size on one circuit

[Skimmerking]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

3 MH and a big screen will trip the breaker. I know, i just had to run a separate circuit to my tank for this reason. Also take into account your heaters and pumps. You really can't run a tank your size on one circuit

ya that is what I was thing Brad. I will keep the
return pump ocean runnner 2500
ehiem 1260 skimmer pump
2x300 W heaters all n one circuit
and a 20 amp for the
3x250's
vortech
maxi flow
25 W night lite.
that should do it right and

thanks to you all for the help tonight

[Binare]

Dont do a gfci breaker, do a gfci receptacle instead.... Unless the plug will be behind your tank. That will save ya a hundred bucks or so. More so when it becomes weak and needs to be replaced. As a side note, yes ya can run a total of 12 devices off a 15amp circuit... Unless you know its intended purpose. Hopefully you put t-slot receptacles on your 20 amp circuit in your garage, your insurance company may give ya the boot if you ever have an issue out there.

[Buzz]

Originally Posted by Binare

Hopefully you put t-slot receptacles on your 20 amp circuit in your garage, your insurance company may give ya the boot if you ever have an issue out there.

Even if it passed inspection with out the t-slot receptacles?

[raceit]

The thing to keep in mind is the purpose of the breaker, protection of the wire, not the device plugged into the outlet.

#14 = 15 amps
#12 = 20 amps
#10 = 30 amps
etc etc

max circuit load is 80 %

[Binare]

Originally Posted by Buzz

Even if it passed inspection with out the t-slot receptacles?

I have alot to say about inspectors... Just not publicly ;-)

[Binare]

Originally Posted by raceit

The thing to keep in mind is the purpose of the breaker, protection of the wire, not the device plugged into the outlet.

#14 = 15 amps
#12 = 20 amps
#10 = 30 amps
etc etc

max circuit load is 80 %

yes and no. Depends on the duty rating of the breaker, whether the device is continious or non continious etc etc. . Hell some breakers dont trip at all. Federal Pioneer anyone? Dont worry, they finally fixed them hehe.

[raceit]

fp breakers are for welding, no stinger required lol

[2pts]

I'm not an electrician. I wired my own house (complete 200 amp service, 4500sqft).

I work with several electricians, and asked one "if you were gonna build a new house for yourself, what would you do that most premade houses don't have?"

His answer "I would install gfci outlets at the first outlet of each circuit". (If wired right it protects all remaining outlets on that circuit.)

So, I did that, the inspector said there was nothing wrong with the way I wired it, very safe, but I would have tonnes of "nuisance trips" from the outlets. Well I did, and promptly rewired almost all GFCI outlets so they only protected themselves, not the down line outlets.

I know it was overkill and expensive, but what I did was run 14/3 to my fishtank circuit, which is 2 seperate double plugs. (Be careful if you do this, research it a lot.) The white (neutral) is shared with the 2 hot circuits (red/black). In the panel I put in a double pole 15amp GFCI breaker ( $150 breaker).

I regret running the 14/3, that locked me into a 2 pole breaker, which is more money. If I did it again I would run either 2 lines of 14/2 and 2 single pole 15 amp gfci breakers or better yet 2 @ 12/2 lines and 2 single pole 20 amp gfci breakers. Reason being, if one circuit trips, it trips both breakers, meaning all my pumps die, except my return pump in the basement which runs in the sump and is plugged into a gfci plug on a whole other circuit.