how many electrical plugs for your tanks?

[Myka]

90 reef: 9 plugs, one powerbar.

20 planted freshwater: 6 plugs.

[mike31154]

For my 75 I use two 'circuits', that is two dual electrical receptacles with a number of power bars & timers. Installed a GFCI type receptacle for one and use a GFCI power bar on the other 'normal' receptacle. One of the power bars is not GFCI protected, need to get on that. It powers one of my VorTechs (no cord in the water), a heater (unplugged for the heat wave) and a timer hooked up to an air pump running my pressurized ATO carboy.

On the GFCI receptacle I have a Coralife Digital Timer (working well BTW) with the following plugs:

two plugs on timed receptacles - each feeding 2x54 watt T5HO retro lamps, 2 Actinic, 2 10000K;

skimmer air pump, 3.2 watts;

skimmer water pump, 8 watts;

pennplax silentair emergency backup air pump (runs only when power is interrupted & is definitely NOT silent when it does);

1xVorTech MP40W propeller pump;

not on the Coralife Timer power bar, but on the other slot of the GFCI receptacle is a Rena XP3 canister running carbon only;

during the cooler months, I have a Stealth 150w heater plugged in here as well.


On the second circuit (non GFCI receptacle) I have the regular power bar powering the following:

vortech MP40W;

stealth 150w heater;

air pump for ATO on a timer.

On the other slot of the non GFCI receptacle I have a GFCI power bar for 2x250w SE MH lamps which I run for about 3 hours at midday.

All together that makes 13 plugs hooked up to two circuits using 3 power bars. I've been planning on adding another receptacle to a wall adjacent to the tank which has no plug. It's an older home and this was an addition to the dining room. For some reason they failed to add a receptacle on that wall which normally would have been required by code. They were running out of circuits on the dated breaker panel though, so it doesn't surprise me. I've had the breaker panel replaced and am in the process of rewiring the place. Some of the stuff I've found is a little scary, surprised the place hadn't burned down....

An upgrade to a larger tank with basement sump/refugium is in the future. This should make power distribution a little cleaner but will add a power hungry component or two, most notably a return pump that will need to overcome at least 11 feet of head pressure if not more, depending on plumbing.

[Alex350]

90 Reef: 16 plugs (2 powerbars balanced on two seperate breakers)