I had my hand in the tank today. While my hand was in the water my shoulder hit my light fixture. I got a shock. It is a 8 bulb t5 fixture. Does that mean my light fixture has a short even though all bulbs are working.
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More than likely it is the other way around. You probably have something faulted in your tank and the light fixture provided a path to ground. I'm assuming you don't have a ground probe.I had my hand in the tank today. While my hand was in the water my shoulder hit my light fixture. I got a shock. It is a 8 bulb t5 fixture. Does that mean my light fixture has a short even though all bulbs are working.
Unless you are on a concrete floor odds are you have enough insulation to prevent you from feeling a shock. To be shocked, you need a path for current to flow through you. Wood, tile, shoes, and dry carpet provide insulation that protects you by blocking current flow. The metal housing of your light fixture connects to ground. Current can flow from your tank, through you, through the light fixture, to ground.No do not. I did not know there a such thing till tonight. I put my hand in the sump and I don't feel anything.
That sounds very normal. Looks like you do have 1 bad powerhead. Glad you found this helpful!I put another powerhead and it went up to 18.6
Yup, that is just fine. Until next week when you decide you need to use the switchable outlet for something!Will plugging the ground probe into a apex controller unused outlet be okay? (I'd hope that ground is always connected regardless if the outlet control relay is on or off!!!!!!!) @Brew12
Just want to clarify a few things for people reading this.I had a bad shock about six months back from three faulty heaters. I removed them all and put new ones in and then found about 20v. It was the return pump. Went dc. Voltage gone. I still want to see a dc heater.
I now have a volt meter in my tank and look at it before touching the tank. I measure current and voltage.
Now I read the start of this thread about ground probes acting as heaters. Rubbish. And I’ll prove it now.
Say you have dead short 120v and a leakage current of 100ma. This is really nearly impossible. Power is voltage times current so you have 12w. Dissipation in the tank as heat isn’t a big deal. Figure the resistance of seawater and then the disapation current across that as a resistor. Just treat it as dc. Ac gets into reactance which makes this harder. So you have this current in this giant box all spread out. What you get in heat from this is going to be nothing compared to the room itself. As for the probe, the resistance is micro ohms if that. There is effectively no heat possible from the probe. I can do the math if you want.
GFI or die.
You should be fine with just one in the sump. The only time it won't cover all 3 is if the return pump isn't running.OK, I am ready to install one( at least). My question is: my "system" also has a refugium and a sump all linked together, totalling about 250 gal.
Do I need 3 probes or just 1?( the heaters are in the sump but there are powerheads in the display and refugium). Thank you!
I bought one too. Good idea. Why do many people are against them is beyond me? Anyhow, I’ve been in this hobby for 12yrs and never even heard of using one. But, I have one now. Also, I checked my stray voltage and it was 12v. It’s now 0. Thanks! I’m sure my fish are thankful too lol.Fantastic. Just knowing that one or two people are buying grounding plugs because of my post makes the time I put into this worth while!
You should be fine with just one in the sump. The only time it won't cover all 3 is if the return pump isn't running.
Yup, a ground probe is absolutely worthless in freshwater. I consider them vital in saltwater.Ok I think I'll go with only 1. In the 25 years of freshwater fish keeping I have never used one and had no problems. But now I'm keeping saltwater fish...........
Thank you!
Not to mention a ground plug makes a GFCI much more effective. It is possible that a faulted electrical component won't trip a GFCI immediately because the insulating aquarium prevents current flow to ground. It won't trip until either you touch the water or you get enough salt creep. I don't want one GFCI tripping to take out my entire aquarium so I have decided to put each "wet" component on it's own GFCI receptacle. Hence what you see on my setup. This way one faulty heater doesn't take out my other heater, return pump, or skimmer. Each receptacle pair is fed from an Apex outlet so I still have full controllability as well as GFCI protection.