Aquarist found dead
 

Posting from another fourm, made me change a few things.


Aquarist Found Dead Originally Posted by: joejaworski | September 6, 2007


This could be the next major headline in the nation’s newspapers, and it could be you that dies.

I’m talking about placing your hands in your aquarium and getting electrocuted. All because you failed to install $15 worth of equipment. Not only you, but the $1,000 you spent on livestock over the past year would be fried too. Besides laying dead next to your tank, your aquarium will turn into black soup within hours. Both you and your aquarium will smell pretty bad.

Aquarium water needs to be grounded. Saltwater is about as conductive as copper wires, and any stray voltage needs to be sent to ground where it will do no harm. Stray voltages are generated from lots of things. When a powerhead or pump motor spins it creates a magnetic field that induces AC voltages in the water. Likewise, ballasts that drive your light bulbs located within a few feet of the tank generate tremendous amounts of stray voltage. I’ve measured stray voltages as high as 46 volts in ungrounded aquariums. While this alone won’t kill you, you will get quite a jolt the minute you touch the water. Lots of research has been done that indicates stray voltages cause LLE (Lateral Line Erosion) in marine fishes, Hole-in-the-Head disease in fresh water fish, and bleach spots in SPS corals.

While stray voltages won’t kill you, equipment malfunctions will. Take any standard glass aquarium heater. Due to its age (are you still using that heater you bought in 1998?) or impacts over its lifetime, or a myriad of other failure mechanisms, heaters will develop hairline cracks in their glass casing. When this happens, minute drops of saltwater is forced into the heater. This is because even at a depth of 6-inches, water exerts pressure on an air-filled heater, forcing water through the tiny crack. Eventually, enough moisture gets in where the hot side of the AC line is conducting current to the neutral side. A ground probe won’t save you. While some current will be diverted to ground, current is freely flowing inside the heater, perhaps several amps and charging the surrounding water. When you put your hand in the tank, you present a better ground path and the current goes through you. Your spouse will either find you dead or dying in front of your precious aquarium.

You need to eliminate yourself from ever being part of the ground loop, and the easiest and cheapest way to do this is to install a GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupt) outlet. These sell for about $10 at Home Depot. You can buy the kind that replaces your existing wall outlet or ones that are built-in to an extension cord. Either one works. The point is,

An aquarium ground probe won’t protect you from electrocution. You must have BOTH a ground probe and a GFCI.

Here’s a real life story. A few months ago I woke up to find one of my tanks, a 20 gallon setup, dark and quiet. It had lost power. I checked the powerstrip and the pilot light was off but it was plugged into the wall. I quickly realized that the GFCI Outlet had tripped. I pushed the reset button on the outlet to restore power and it wouldn’t stay in. I figured the GFCI outlet had crapped out. I ran an extension cord over to the tank from a regular (non-GFCI) outlet and plugged the powerstrip in. Viola! The lights came on, the pumps started up, and everything was fine.

Being an electrical engineer, I was very curious about the defective GFCI outlet. I plugged everything back in to the GFCI and then started unplugging each cord one at a time. When I got to a Maxi-Jet 1200, the GFCI stopped tripping. I plugged the Maxi-Jet back in and sure enough, it tripped again and killed the power. I grabbed my voltmeter and put one probe in the water and the other to ground. I plugged the tank back in and read 114 volts. Holy **** - If I had put my hands in the tank, I wouldn’t be writing this at all. Or maybe doing so from the intensive care ward. No doubt that I would have been electrocuted if it wasn’t for that GFCI outlet.

I figure that the powerhead must have gotten a crack in its epoxy coating, or perhaps it was there from day 1 and it took 6 months for seawater to slowly leak in. Whatever the reason, the ground probe alone would not have prevented my demise. As long as the current flow through the ground probe stays below 15 amps, the service panel breaker in your house will never trip. And all it takes is 100 milliamps (1/10th of an amp) to stop your heart. No matter what the odds, is your life worth a $20 powerhead?

I don’t know how else to convince you how important this is to do. You need to do it TODAY. If you don’t give a **** about yourself, don’t take a risk electrocuting one of your kids or your spouse. Install a GFCI and a ground probe on EVERY tank in your house no matter how small. If you don’t, the next time you put your hands in your tank may be the last.

Ok, to save people from clicking the link, I'll summarize one key thing:

This is an article extolling the use of GFCI breakers. There wasn't actually an active member of aquariumpros.ca found deceased, they are saying "this could happen to you if you don't use GFCI's."

Thanks for that. Not to bash but that site drives me nuts, and I've been a member there longer than here.

Yeah, sorry edited. Catch your drift.

wish i read this a few hours ago, got shocked a few times cause the wire of a cheap rio pump was exposed to the water...so what should i do? purchase a cgfi outlet and a grounding probe? what exactly is a grounding probe and what does it do

It will take stray voltage away from the tank.
http://www.jlaquatics.com/phpstore/s...oduct_ID=mc-gp

The author wrote "You must have BOTH a ground probe and a GFCI" to be safe.

Is that true? Why both? I run a GFCI and want to understand why you would also need a ground probe. Any electrical or safety experts out there?

The ground probe is there to help the GFCI operate, the GFCI is the safety device and is the most important part of the safe aquarium.
The GFCI will work alone without the ground probe, however the ground probe alone without the GFCI is more dangerous than having nothing. The danger in electricity is when you become its path of least resistance to ground.
THE GFCI IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART!

A grain of salt (pardon the pun) is called for here.

120VAC from a wall plug can certainly kill you -and as it has been pointed out, it takes mere milliamps (thousandths of an amp) to cause your heart to fibrilate. However, this in only even remotely likely in certain circumstances where the current path is across the heart (like if you had your left hand in a live tank and your right hand on a low impedance path to ground -like a lightswitch).

If you have a grounding probe (that is properly grounded) in your tank and there is an exposed wire in the tank then:

1) If there is enough conductivity between the live wire and the ground probe (like a dead short) then the circuit breaker will blow. That's when they're designed for; to protect property and prevent fires, etc. (not save your life).

2) If the conductivity is high enough so that not enough current flows to flip the breaker -OR- if you do not have a ground probe, then you potentially have a body of water at anywhere up to 120 Volts. In this case, if you put your hand in the water and present a path to ground, then, yes, you can get a shock. However, unless, you are barefoot, standing in a puddle of water that is in contact with something that is grounded, then while you may feel something, it is unlikely that you will be injured.

In fact, the most likely injury you would suffer would be from yanking your hand out and hitting it on your light or something.

Electricity always follows the path of least resistance (it's lazy, just like us) so if the ground probe is present it will present a low resistance path to ground and you will conduct very little by comparison -unless of course you're still standing in that puddle in which case you could be in trouble.

You can drown in less than an inch of water too; you just need to be face down, covering both your nose and mouth -oh, and you'll need to be unconscious at the same time -all possible but not very probable. You stand a far better chance of winning the 6/49 than being killed by your aquarium.

Am I saying this is all fear mongering ? No. Never compromise on safety and GFCI's and ground probes make sense and are inexpensive anyhow. But if you don't have these you are not necessarily 'just waiting to die' either.

"Being an electrical engineer"

I'd say the OP is an expert.