Aquariums and GFCI

[JTaylor420]

hey midgetwaiter, you name 1 electrician that has never been shocked at work. Sometimes it is necessary to keep power on the circuit while working on it, needless to say i've moved wires or had them brush against me (being live wires) with not even feeling a thing. Anyways i'm just putting in my 2 cents on the subject take my opinion's for what you think their worth and use it or not. And about the gfi's in house's now like i said in my original post gfi's are great just not for fishtanks. Stop trying to look big like i said i'm not starting a debate here if you have nothing intelligent to counter my side of the argument dont waste your time.

[fkshiu]

Originally Posted by JTaylor420

hey midgetwaiter, you name 1 electrician that has never been shocked at work. Sometimes it is necessary to keep power on the circuit while working on it, needless to say i've moved wires or had them brush against me (being live wires) with not even feeling a thing. Anyways i'm just putting in my 2 cents on the subject take my opinion's for what you think their worth and use it or not. And about the gfi's in house's now like i said in my original post gfi's are great just not for fishtanks. Stop trying to look big like i said i'm not starting a debate here if you have nothing intelligent to counter my side of the argument dont waste your time.

I believe that a GFI saved my life. Like a lot of these things it all started out very routinely and innocently. I had cleaned my extermal return pump and started it back up again. It was making a funny sound so I simply started to poke around the pump and tapped at the volute while leaving the pump on. After a couple of taps the volute began spraying jets of water in my face and all around me. Like many people I have some powerbars under the tank. They are not sitting on the ground but are screwed into place with drip loops. When I finally stop the water I was kneeling in a large pool of salt water along with the soaked powerbars. In my panic I had flailed around and accidentally grabbed onto the powerbars several times. The GFCIs had tripped like they were supposed to. I felt nothing and there wasn't even a spark. My tank powerheads which are on a separate GFCI protected circuit kept running like nothing had happened. It turns out that I had not properly seated the volute into the pump which was the caused of the near disaster.

The important part of this is that I don't believe I would have qualified for a Darwin Award. I was doing something I've done numerous times before and did not believe I acted unreasonably yet something really bad almost occurred. I can think of a myriad of instances where someone is fiddling with something around their tank and something similar happens. For example, if you are fiddling with your lights above the tank and for some reason they fall into the tank. SW and electricity in such close proximity to each other is inherently risky. If you have young curious young children or pets the danger increases tenfold.

On a related note a firefighter friend of mine said that whenever they trace the cause of a fire back to an aquarium it's almost always a SW aquarium with no GFCI protection. This is probably because of the rat's nest of powerbars and wires that are under SW tanks and the fact that SW is a wonderful conductor of electricity. All it takes is for a few drops of SW to splash onto a powerbar to cause some sparks and away we go. GFCIs would prevent this. He says he's seen a lot of examples of a mass of powerbars melted together underneath SW tanks.

[hillegom]

If some people are worried about one GFCI turning off all power if it trips, then why not run two GFCI's.
Behind my tank I have one outlet for my 50 gal. When I am going to change to my 120, I will add another outlet and have two GFCI's. That way, All functions in the tank will not go out at the same time.

[midgetwaiter]

Originally Posted by JTaylor420

hey midgetwaiter, you name 1 electrician that has never been shocked at work. Sometimes it is necessary to keep power on the circuit while working on it, needless to say i've moved wires or had them brush against me (being live wires) with not even feeling a thing. Anyways i'm just putting in my 2 cents on the subject take my opinion's for what you think their worth and use it or not. And about the gfi's in house's now like i said in my original post gfi's are great just not for fishtanks. Stop trying to look big like i said i'm not starting a debate here if you have nothing intelligent to counter my side of the argument dont waste your time.

My Dad was an electrician, I learned a lot from him, like how to handle live wires when fixing something. I work on computers, I have had a 2000Va UPS and a 17" CRT shock me. I understand electricity very well.

Somebody needs to "look big" and correct the dangerous info you are putting out there, the presence of water is a game changer and you need to realize that. You might not take much of a hit brushing up against 120 in the normal course of things but try it in socks with a wet (SW wet especially) hand, then see what happens.

You can confirm this by referencing any junior high science text book.

[mark]

What's bothering me here is the "I'm an electrician, therefore an expert so listen to me crap on the use of GFI".

[Binare]

Originally Posted by mark

What's bothering me here is the "I'm an electrician, therefore an expert so listen to me crap on the use of GFI".

Hope I havent caused that feeling Mark I'm the "Electrician" who started this post. I am no expert on GFCI.

Personally, I could care less what everyone decides to do with there tanks. This little debate has made some people think.. which is a good thing, others well... some interesting comments have come up to say the least.... and others i seriously find offensive coming from "electricians", its about I can take to end up going on a rant about one certain person in this discussion whos comments make me wonder how much experience they actually have. Hopefully I can leave it that... hopefully everyone knows good advice and bad advice.

[banditpowdercoat]

Originally Posted by mark

As confidant as you are with you're wiring, you don't control the build of the equipment in your tank nor what may happen to it over the years. And thought I never heard on the news fish tank owner electrocuted, shocks are a big deal and do kill.

I may not control the build, But I monitor the condition's, and inspect. But hey, like stated, I'ts a personal choice.

[spreerider]

I am sure glad i put a GFCI for my tank circuit, a few weeks ago my son fell off a chair and crashed head first through the tank, while i was at work also an electrician. My wife rushed him to the hospital but didnt think to check if the tank was shut off, all the pumps and heaters running without water could have caused a fire, but the GFCI tripped possibly saving my son from a shock and possibly my house from a fire. Most tank manufacturers recommend you use a GFCI.

[Gizmo]

Regarding GFI's protecting from fires, there is a simple fix for that. Mount your powerbars and put in drip loops, how many can say that they actually do that? Have splash from your sump around the powerbars? use a acrylic sheet either ontop of the sump, or in front of the MOUNTED powerbars. Obviously if you have an equipment failure (broken heater or a mantis shrimp decided to take a chomp at your favorate powerhead cord) a GFI would be nice. But my experience (8 years in the hobby) says use a grounding probe tied right to a copper water line (please don't use the grounding prong on an outlet, you probably didn't wire your house and you can't be sure if it is a working ground without testing) will save you from those broken device. By all means use a GFI cct on non critical systems, but as i've said, experience has taught me that these things are more of a hinderance than help.

[midgetwaiter]

So okay then let's flip this discussion around. We have lots of people that have shared experiences about GFIs saving them from shocks or fires. Does anyone at all have a story about how a nuisance tripped GFI cost them livestock? Not a trip that was warranted, just a random event like is presented as an argument against them.

I have lost livestock to a tripped GFI but it wasn't a nuisance trip, something shorted in my ATO controller and I didn't notice for a couple days because I wasn't around. Lost 2 Bangaii Cardinals from the QT tank but all of the corals and fish in the other came through okay. Probably not worse than the controller going up in flames.