Lost my pair of flame angels to a GFCI trip :(

[Delphinus]

Sorry, just venting.

Came home to find one of my GFCI's had tripped earlier in the day. Two tanks were flatlined, my 110g cube and my 20g nano. The juvenile flame angels I had since December in the 20g sadly did not make it.

I am so mad at myself because today was like one day that I had not had a chance to check on things earlier. Although in all likelihood they were already dead when I was at work, but I'll never know.

I need an alarm or a controller that alarms when the power goes out.

This is my one rant about GFCI's. I have had them trip out for no apparent reason several times. I've had flatlined tanks for up to 8 hours before with no loss of life, but today was more like 11 hours flatlined and I guess this time the fish would not be so lucky.

The weirdest thing is I was just away for nearly two weeks, and this happens 3 days after I get back.

Sighhhh .... this hobby has a nasty sting sometimes.

[scumchug]

Sorry to hear. I have felt your pain. But having bought this makes me feel better.


http://www.ecotechmarine.com/products/batterybackup.php

[untamed]

I have four circuits, each on a GFCI...and they have never tripped once. They are trying to tell you something. I don't think that is normal.

[Monti-Man]

Tony i'm sorry you lost them:(
Gees it has not been a good week for u!!

It has not been a good week for alot here lately..Makes me worried. We go camping on Sunday:(

[Delphinus]

Sure seems like a lot of Murphy's Law all over this week. :(

I'm just stunned they died, I've had tank flatlines so many times, but it must be because the tank is so much smaller and thus less stability..

Sigh...

[Delphinus]

You'd think, but what? I can't find a voltage potential when I put on a multimeter. I've had about 4 or 5 unexplained trippings in 4 years. So it's not like it happens ALL the time.. Once was when the house next door was being built, weird. I think the vibrations caused by the excavator who was vibrating/packing-down gravel somehow caused it to trip?

Today it happened shortly after the lights turned on, so it's hard to imagine that's not just coincidence..

Don't really know how to go about diagnosing and correcting though..


I have four circuits, each on a GFCI...and they have never tripped once. They are trying to tell you something. I don't think that is normal.

[EmilyB]

Angels being deepwater fish need so much oxygen. They go quickly with the power off.

I agree something is not right for your GFCI's to be tripping.

[mark]

Haven't had a false trip with all of mine since starting this hobby (~6yrs). They do fail though, after a true false trip I'd be replacing.

[Doug]

Geez Tony. Sorry for the loss. Although I would never run anything without GFI circuits, they can be a pain sometimes. I always try to run multiple,s on any one tank.

My current one has a tank only circuit, with a GFI in the cabinet and some of the equipment runs on the house GFI/Arc Fault circuits.

I,m guessing some of the controllers can let you know when something like that happens but I dont know how much good that would be, if nobody was around to correct the problem.

[Lance]

Sorry for your loss.

[digital-audiophile]

Your cube and ritteri are ok though right?

[fortheloveofcrabs]

That really sucks... Sorry to hear about your Angels...

What kind og GFCI are you using? Could it be they are just a crummy brand/model?

[spreerider]

I would replace your GFCI if you think they tripped for no reason, GFCI can also trip on an overload so you could have been drawing just over 15A and it is taking along time to heat up to a trip condition.

[motokorth]

I feel your pain, sorry to hear about that. I personally just had my 28g tank crash when a 9 year old kid dumped all my fish food into the tank, 4 hours before I came home.

[fishoholic]

Sorry for your losses, that really sucks.

[muck]

Tony, what do you all have plugged into that GFI circuit?

[OCDP]

Yikes man. Too many losses for you in one week Tony!

Seems like lots of us are suffering losses ATM. I lost my true perc today,, but I have myself to blame for that in the end.

Anyways, sorry for the losses :(

[Delphinus]

Most of the times I've had a GFCI trip, I've been able to find the cause. This is just one of the few for which I'm not able to find a cause. I've had about 4 or 5 like this in as many years. I'll go with current overload as a likely culprit as because it happened just after the lights turned on. The only thing is that it should not be anywhere near the 15A limit.

Moreso my lesson learned though here is that I would prefer an alarm of some sort for the future. Indeed - the GFCI tripping tells us "something" but that is not the real root of the problem - the problem is that "stuff happens", and when it happens when you're in a position where you can only assume that things are OK - then it would be nice to be notified somehow.

Cube tank with the ritteri and its inhabitants appear to be OK today. Other than now being a fishless tank, the 20g appears OK too. Snails, abalone, etc. - everything but the fish - weathered the flatline just fine.

Doesn't compare to a total tank loss but I'm just sad today anyhow..

[spreerider]

The ballast for your lights will draw a large startup current about 10X normal for a few seconds as the bulbs strike an arc and charge the coils and caps. if you are already running higher than normal this quick draw can be enough to trip the breaker,
its like when i run my chopsaw it draws 14A when running but 28 when it first starts up and trips the breaker if its already been heated at all.

[Delphinus]

I realize there's a surge but I'm not sure what the peak draw is during the surge. The lights on this particular circuit are one 250W DE and then 4x24W t5's over the 20. Not knowing the surge values, my general strategy has been just to generally try not to overload the breaker, ie., try to keep it no more than half, ie., 7 or 8 amps. I should reassess all the items on it, but at least at time of writing this, I don't think I'm overloading the circuit. If it is a dodgy GFCI, I'll be retiring the hardware soon enough anyhow though, restringing wires, etc., so hopefully it will be a moot point in time.

[Zoaelite]

Sorry about your angels Tony, did the zoo's make it though okay? (Well on the good side I guess you wont have any more anemone go "missing" :lol:)
Levi

[mark]

didn't think a GFI would trip on a overcurrent, just ground faults.

Another thing I've never checked for is what type of device they're rate for (inductive, resistive etc)

[Delphinus]

Should mention I've had a GFCI kick off because I touched a reflector and there was a static discharge.. and since the reflector was grounded, the GFCI kicked. Don't know what kind of voltage/amperage you'd see from a static cling zap, but it was enough that day. So it makes me think it's not that hard to make these things do their thing.

On a side note, I've been looking for power failure alarms. Found a couple..
http://www.cshincorporated.com/product_info.php?products_id=87
This one is pretty neat.. I see it come up in a bunch of places so I wonder if I could find it locally like at Rona/HD/etc.:
http://www.improvementscatalog.com/product/code/326733.do?cm_mmc=Froogle-_-Flashlights/PowerFailure-_-2008-_-326733&code-macs=MP8WFGL&code=MP8WFGL

[mark]

GFI will trip down ~5mA so doesn't take much.

Imagine if you wanted to spend the bucks could find a aquarium control that would send a text to your cel-phone if the power went out.

[Delphinus]

Yeah, I was thinking I should look into something like that for the big project. The battery backup pumps seem like a good idea too of course, but the real kicker here is that I didn't know there was a problem until I came home at 10pm and the worst of it was that it had been flatlined all freakin' day long. :(

Time to start savin'...

[Pescador]

I'm using this alarm Tony but it looks like it's been discontinued.
http://shop.talkaboutsleep.com/?action=item.display&category=power-failure-alarm&page=90100

[spreerider]

GFCI Breaker has to be able to trip on overcurrent but a duplex recepticle one will not, i thought we were talking about a breaker in the pannel one IMO they are way higher quality.

Also depending on what is downstream of the GFCI can affect it possibly in another room depending on how the house is wired, I did some work on a house that had the GFCI in the bathroom tripping all the time, it turned out it was a motion security light that the homeowner had installed and taken power from the bathroom as it was the closest source, evertime the light turned on it tripped the GFCI.

GFCI have a coil around both hot and neutral connections and a voltage will be generated in the coil if hot and neutral are not equal, this means that somewhere there is a fault some current must be leaking through ground and not neutral, they dont actually measure current through the ground.

[michika]

I'm really sorry to hear this. I thought your angels were among the most beautifully colored that I'd ever seen!

[untamed]

If you can find a CDN supplier of these things, please post. I just spent some time and couldn't find any CDN online supplier. I suppose I could order from some online US retailer, but paying all those brokerage fees is so annoying.