My first aquariums - 404 display/150 frag

[Myka]

Magma's advice to put all lights on one breaker is good advice. Since you have 4 breakers you should have no problem dedicating one to lighting only. I found the GFCI receptacles couldn't handle my halide lighting which is why one of my breakers is GFCI instead of the receptacle. The GFCI breakers are about $100 each where the receptacles are $20 each. My understanding is that you only need one GFCI receptacle per breaker to protect the whole breaker, but check with an electrician!

[Magma]

Originally Posted by Myka

Magma's advice to put all lights on one breaker is good advice. Since you have 4 breakers you should have no problem dedicating one to lighting only. I found the GFCI receptacles couldn't handle my halide lighting which is why one of my breakers is GFCI instead of the receptacle. The GFCI breakers are about $100 each where the receptacles are $20 each. My understanding is that you only need one GFCI receptacle per breaker to protect the whole breaker, but check with an electrician!

Good thing I am an Electrician!

GFCI breakers range from about $90 and up, the plug is around 15-20 depending on the style.

So yes it depends on how you wire the GFCI plugs. They have a Line side and a Load side.

Generally speaking you would come from the panel and into the Line side on the GFCI plug. If you have more plugs down the line you can just put the next circuit into the LOAD side of the plug and everything after that would be GFCI protected. (Basically anything wired directly off the GFCI plug down the line is GFCI protected, and anything before the GFCI is NOT protected. Thats if its all wired correctly)

When you buy a GFCI plug it has an instruction sheet on how to wire it and also clearly marks on the plug which side is which. Most have a yellow sticker over the Load side so you don't end up hooking it up wrong.

If you needed some help with it I am free on weekends and some evenings to help as well.

[b09u5]

So I think I have this cased then. I have three sections, each on a seperate non-GFI breaker: Display Tank; Frag Tank; Sump. I will only be powering lights and powerheads on the tank breakers, and the sump will take the rest. Smaller things like the fans, and lower outlets are technically GFI as there is one between the breaker ant the first outlet.

I can simply continue as I planned with 3 GFI outlets on each of the tank breakers. I think that this means that if the lights trip the GFI, the 2 other GFI outlets on the same line would still work. If this is true, I am OK. If this is false, I need to teach my electrician a thing or two! If the lights keep tripping, I think I can simply swap that outlet for a non-GFI and keep the other 2 as GFI. Let me know if this is the case.

Here is what the setup would look like for both tanks:

non-gfi breaker-----GFI outlet lights-----GFI outlet lights-----GFI outlet powerheads


if that doesn't work:

non-gfi breaker----- non GFI outlet lights-----non GFI outlet lights-----GFI outlet powerheads

The setup for the sump would look like this:

non-gfi breaker-----GFI outlet heaters------GFI outlet return pump------GFI outlet skimmer-------GFI outlet doser----GFI outlet light-----GFI outlet open-----GFI outlet open.

Again, I was going with so many separate GFIs so if i had issues with any, all other things would work. If this is not the case, clearly the GFI outlets are redundant. I think this makes sense, and should work, but I could be wrong. I may need to feed each GFI individually from the main power ie: in parallel rather than in series.

Let me know your thoughts, Magma.

[Magma]

heres the thing I notice (now I would almost need to see it in person to actually see how its wired) but if you have for example the sump setup.

non-gfi breaker-----GFI outlet heaters------GFI outlet return pump------GFI outlet skimmer-------GFI outlet doser----GFI outlet light-----GFI outlet open-----GFI outlet open.

Say your away for the day and all the GFI plugs are wired on the Load side starting from the heaters. If the light tripped the GFI and it actually went back and tripped the Heaters everything down the line would be off not saying it would happen but hey I have seen some weird things happen before (I tripped a dedicated lighting circuit in a panel downtown and took out the MAIN breaker for the building).

So if that whole circuit is off for a day you have just lost, heat, skimmer, return, doser plus whatever else you want.

But then again if the guy wired them correctly so they are all separate then if you trip the light plug the rest still keeps going. It all depends on how they are wired and its easy to screw up if your not paying attention.

My suggestion would be anywhere you have a "GFI Outlet lights" change it to a standard plug no GFI. Ballasts trip GFI's randomly and if your lights are on a timer and your not home its asking for trouble.


My whole tank is on 2 circuits in my house and I dont use one GFI plug or breaker. I have standard plugs with drip loops on all my cords. Thats just how I do it, everyone has there own ways.

[gregzz4]

As mentioned, having a lot of hardware on one GFI breaker is looking for trouble
I use a total of 13 GFCI duplexes and ran 2 15A circuits
'Almost' every individual piece of hardware I'm running has it's own duplex
The only things that are doubled up are;
My heaters, but there is another pair on a Ranco controller on it's own duplex, so no problem
My UV and GFO are together
My Skimmer and Carbon are together
My Return pump and Tunze Osmolator are together (on purpose)
My Chiller/UV pump and 'fuge' pump are together

I run 4 T5HO ballasts and have never had an issue with the GFCIs
The ballasts are connected through a PC4 power bar, so whether or not this solved any nuisance tripping or not I don't know

I also installed Surge supressor duplexes to protect the solid state stuff, like my Controller, Vortechs and Battery B/U, and ATO

I may have missed mention of it but are you going to use ground probes ?
I have 5
DT, Sump, ATO tank, NSW mixing tank and QT

Keep up the good work and enjoy your build

[Myka]

I have >600 watts of lighting and my return pump on one 20 amp GFCI breaker, and it has never tripped in the 2 years it's been installed. We first set it up with a GFCI receptacle and it would trip as soon as the halide ballasts tried to fire. My powerheads, doser, ATO, and skimmer are all on another 20 amp breaker with GFCI receptacles.

In my fish room I have 3 quad receptacles each with a GFCI receptacle that are all surface mounted by an electrician. There are also two standard in-wall dual receptacles in the room that were both plugged with those kid proof covers. I was short one plugin and decided to plug a Mag 3 pump into one of the in-wall receptacles to mix saltwater. It ran that way for several months without a hitch, and I forgot about it. I was away for the winter working in Alberta and I receive a panicked text message from the inlaws saying there is a firetruck at the house (ya thanks for the details!). It turns out the Mag 3 decided to seize and proceeded to overheat and the receptacle caught fire. Luckily there wasn't anything near the receptacle that would catch fire or the whole house could have burned down. Apparently the whole house was full of smoke, and I had to paint over the 18" black flame marks up the wall. When the receptacle caught fire it did eventually trip the (normal) breaker in the panel. If it was GFCI the receptacle probably wouldn't have caught fire to begin with.

Moral of the story, Murphy's Law says it will be the ONE unprotected receptacle that will happen to have the ONE piece of equipment that will fail and cause your whole house to burn down. Now, all my fish related receptacles are protected. They have saved the bacon numerous times.

I had a similar thing happen with a different mixing pump on a GFCI receptacle and it tripped the breaker at the very first spark. I was actually standing within 3' when that happened. Nearly pooped my pants.

I also had a newly installed algae turf scrubber fall over in the sump overnight. It then shot water 4' up the wall directly at the plugs...of course. This tripped the GFCI and saved all the pumps in the sump that would have run dry otherwise, it also limited the amount of water on the floor. I slept like a baby through all this and groggy in bare feet before my morning coffee I walk in the room and wonder why the heck my feet feel wet. An aquarist wakes up real fast when the feet get wet for an unknown reason.

Moral of those two stories, GFCIs are multi-purpose tools.

You have to figure out what you're comfortable with for yourself, and then you have to try to sleep at night for the first week it's running.

[Magma]

Originally Posted by gregzz4

I may have missed mention of it but are you going to use ground probes ?

NO NO NO NO NO!

Ground Probes have to be one of the worst things IMO.

Your not fixing the problem at ALL! All you are doing is providing a path for current to flow. If you have that much voltage and current that you need a ground probe you have a problem and it needs to be fixed NOW.

Voltage is not a problem, current is. BUT you can have voltage exist without current. Its how birds and squirrels can walk along the power lines and not end up as BBQ.

Pretty good ready with some longer explanations can be found here:
http://angel-strike.com/aquarium/GroundingProbes.html
http://freshaquarium.about.com/od/pr.../grounding.htm (Tips and tricks)


Lots more lengthy discussions on other forums and I find a lot of people have mixed feelings on this. But to me I find putting on a band-aid over a big problem on works for so long before it can be come a massive problem. Isolate the problem and replace the equipment.

[gregzz4]

Originally Posted by Magma

NO NO NO NO NO!

Ground Probes have to be one of the worst things IMO.

Your not fixing the problem at ALL! All you are doing is providing a path for current to flow. If you have that much voltage and current that you need a ground probe you have a problem and it needs to be fixed NOW.

Voltage is not a problem, current is. BUT you can have voltage exist without current. Its how birds and squirrels can walk along the power lines and not end up as BBQ.

Pretty good ready with some longer explanations can be found here:
http://angel-strike.com/aquarium/GroundingProbes.html
http://freshaquarium.about.com/od/pr.../grounding.htm (Tips and tricks)


Lots more lengthy discussions on other forums and I find a lot of people have mixed feelings on this. But to me I find putting on a band-aid over a big problem on works for so long before it can be come a massive problem. Isolate the problem and replace the equipment.

OK then.
You're the electrician here

But it's my understanding that using a GFCI 'without' a ground probe causes it to react slower, and a GFCI 'with' a probe protects life, as far as millisecond response time goes where heart issues are concerned

Please explain how a ground probe 'can't' help trip a circuit faster than without one ....