Stray voltage causing issues in tanks!

[TheWolfman]

Nice and warm in there.. I’ll take the fried snake for dinner please. On a serious note as an electrician I’m on the fence about the grounding probe but have decided to use it. Stray voltage will find its way into your aquarium even brand new with top notch equipment running. I have elected to use the ground probes with gfci outlets though on all my tanks after finding that they all had some sort of stay voltage in them.

 

[RD.]

I apprenticed 30+ yrs ago as an electrician, spent close to 3 yrs in the trade, went to school twice, and in 3rd year shifted to a different career. So I have enough experience and schooling to understand the basics. The rest is mostly memorizing code.

By the way, if something in my tank failed and it caused the GFCI at main breaker to trip, would that cut off electricity to the whole house until physically reset?

If your entire home is tied into & downstream of that GFCI breaker, then yes, it would need to be reset. Until then you would have no power in your house.

 

[islandguy11]

Oh the old snakes in a breaker box issue, might want to see if you can plug or screen off any holes to that box.

Sorry I should have clarified that's in Thailand but not at my house (luckily), it's just weird that it popped up on my FB timeline today so couldn't help but to share.

 

[islandguy11]

I just found a place online here in Thailand that sells proper gfci receptacles, so despite having the GFCI on the main circuit box I'm going to order some of these and have the electrician put them in all 3 fish rooms just as extra protection. Luckily such services here are considerably cheaper than in the US and he won't mind making some extra change to alter his recent work.

Also I'm leaning more and more toward installing grounding probes on the tanks after I make sure I have the proper gfci back-up, again appreciate all the input.

 

[RD.]

Just a couple of things to add to this - check your GFCI's on a regular basis to make sure that they are working. On a receptacle they will have a "test" and "reset" button. Ditto to power bars etc. Like any other piece of equipment GFCI's can fail, I just recently replaced one in our kitchen that was approx. 10 yrs old.

 

[islandguy11]

Nice and warm in there.. I’ll take the fried snake for dinner please. On a serious note as an electrician I’m on the fence about the grounding probe but have decided to use it. Stray voltage will find its way into your aquarium even brand new with top notch equipment running. I have elected to use the ground probes with gfci outlets though on all my tanks after finding that they all had some sort of stay voltage in them.

Well come to Thailand for some snake dinner, the locals (very locals I mean), eat both BBQ'd pythons and cobras Never tired either myself and never plan to, which also goes for the friend insects at the market.

Btw, I wonder how much of that (nearly inevitable) stray voltage you mention is induced voltage (which I only vaguely understand) from our pumps, and also if induced voltage is just as potentially annoying to our fish as regular voltage?

Just a couple of things to add to this - check your GFCI's on a regular basis to make sure that they are working. On a receptacle they will have a "test" and "reset" button. Ditto to power bars etc. Like any other piece of equipment GFCI's can fail, I just recently replaced one in our kitchen that was approx. 10 yrs old.

Good reminder for us all Neil, I already tested our main GFCI box a couple of days ago and it shut off right away; at any rate I'll probably replace after a bit as it seems kinda on the older side.

 

[TheWolfman]

My wife and I spent out honey moon in Thailand, it was very beautiful and we can’t wait to go back. I got sick immediately lol but it was ok, everyone can always use a good cleanse. But to put things into perspective I unplugged all of my submerged equipment and still Had stray voltage getting into the water. Just the power strip that runs the length of my tank was inducing stray current into the tank. This is why I’m running ground plugs now.

 

[Ulu]

I've been doing some random testing.
I saw 11 vac in one tank, but DC voltage was a mere 0.012~0.025 vdc

Nothing on the Oscar tank, as it is plastic and there's no wire in the tank, all elctricals are in the sump.
There was a 0.01vdc ~ 0.10vdc potential between tank and sump. This was true of each sump system.

 

[Galantspeedz]

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/circuit-breaker-could-be-a-lifesaver

the pics in the article, is it the circuit breaker that you all are talking about?

 

[islandguy11]

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/circuit-breaker-could-be-a-lifesaver

the pics in the article, is it the circuit breaker that you all are talking about?

Not really Galantzspeed -- others could explain way better, but pretty much all homes have circuit breakers (which trip when there is current overload), but GFCI kind of goes on top of that for extra protection (and is more sensitive, so trips when there are leaks instead of full on overload). Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think circuit breakers are more for protecting your devices/appliances/home from fire, whereas GFCI is more about protecting the person.

In any case it's good practice to regularly check both circuit breakers and GFCI as the article mentions (and RD above).