GFI saved my life tonight
 

So.... Cautionary tale to anyone who doesn't have GFI outlets on their tank.

I was working in my sump just now, trying to dig a piece of caulerpa out of my fuge that had fallen to the base of a pile of rocks. My left arm was in the sump up to my bicep, then I shifted weird and hit one of my fuge lights just so, knocked it off its hook, and it fell in the water perfectly right next to my hand. The reflector is wider than the fuge chamber and it normally shouldn't fit. It couldn't have been more of a perfect fluke if I tried.

I didn't feel a thing. The second it hit the water everything plugged in to that outlet blinked off. I unplugged the light, reset the GFI outlet, and here I am typing this all to you with nothing more than a good scare.

It doesn't even look like my fuge light is damaged. It's one of those super simple work lights with a CFL grow bulb. I've dried it off and it's good to go.

If that had been plugged in to a regular outlet my best case scenario would have been a serious shock and possibly a Mercury filled bulb exploding in my sump. Worst case would have been my family finding me dead tomorrow morning.

I hope everyone is using GFI, even though they can be a PITA.

Glad to hear you're OK Adam

I went overkill as I don't want 1 GFI for my whole tank, or 2-3 spread around ...
I have 13, yes, 13 GFCIs on my system ! And 3 surge suppressors on 2 circuits
No one item will turn off anything else so no worries about my heaters killing my return pump, or whatever

And I'm covered no matter what I touch

Overkill, yes

I also use GFCI for everything. It's saved me a few shocks over the years.

lol Greg you are so rich :). As you don't need that many GFCI in one place if they are on the same breaker or power line. What you need most is the ground probe to put in the tank it is cheap but it will ground all the water in the tank in case things like this happen.

13 GFIs in 2 circuits?
You know 11 of them are doing nothing right?

Not true
Everything in my system that touches water is plugged into it's own GFI

I'm not into having the whole circuit blow because of one bad piece of hardware

I am glad this had a great outcome. I had thought about putting in a gfi but forgot about it and well too late now I guess I should do up a will just in case

you do know for 2 circuits you only need 2 GFI receptacles installed...put one at the start of each circuit and attach the next one onto the LOAD side of the GFI that way everything connected after that goes back to the GFI in this case it would save you about $200 in extra plugs you just dont need...

Seems a little overkill but to each his own I guess.

still easy to do. one gfi with protect those downsteam or if hard to figure which, just replace the breaker (bit more expensive than receptacle)

You guys are missing the point

If you use 1 gfi per circuit you risk turning off ALL your equipment with just one piece failing