Hello everyone, so I had been doing some research on proper power strips for fish rooms, any rooms with water involved. What I found may be helpful to anyone who is worried about issues caused with improper power strips or old power strips. In short, there are no power strips to protect against water, the only effective protection against water is to install GFCI/AFCI outlets into any room that has the potential to get wet or water splashed OR install GFCI/AFCI breakers in your breaker box, for the rooms your tanks are in. There are “waterproof” power strips, whereas they may help prevent water entering the strip, they are not guaranteed to protect you. What you want for water protection is one of two options… You can either put GFCI/AFCI wall outlets in each specific outlet being used and also nearby your fish tanks, OR you can install GFCI/AFCI breakers in your breaker box, for the specific breakers you are using for your fish rooms. I do not condone to do electric work yourself, I’m just here to spread awareness of how to prevent fires due to water splashing. There have been threads about this topic before. Good power strips to use would be Surge Protectors, if a pump goes bad, it can short out a circuit so the surge protection helps against faulty equipment and heat. It protects against voltage spikes and short circuits but not water. So your power strip protects you from any faulty equipment, while the GFCI/AFCI protects against the water. Ideally you want a good quality surge protection power strip coupled with GFCI/AFCI outlets OR GFCI/AFCI breakers. You do not need both wall outlets and breaker being GFCI/AFCI they are redundant and one protects the whole electrical circuit, if you have it. Having those pretty much covers you all around from bad equipment/random voltage spikes/heat to water protection. Also, some things to consider. If you are using multiple power strips on the same breaker, the 15 amp rating on your power strip is meaningless when you only have 15 amps total supplied from your breaker. You’ll trip the breaker before you trip either power strip. What you need to do is calculate all your amps being used and if it exceeds 15 amps, you need two separate your power from two different breakers to run everything. I know it’s a bit of a read but I hope it can help anyone who may be concerned about all the power usage fish tanks can use. If I am incorrect on anything or if anyone wants to add any other good information on this topic, please feel free to do so in the comments so we all can spread knowledge to each other. I’ve attached a photo of my current power strip upgrade for visuals. Happy Fish Keeping and Best Regards everyone
