stephen g. giannoni

In view of the potential total demise of an acquarium resulting from
even the slightest seepage to electrical heater circuits, it would
seem that a seperate ultra sensitive probe and detection circuit would
be very desireable. Anyone know of any such equipment ? ...

alpha

http://www.wonbrothers.com/product/heater/ICHEATER.htm

alpha

I do not endorse the leakage safety of the product, since I use Hagen
tronics that are glass, not these. However, others have commented on this
unit in the past because it is theoretically unbreakable. They do not say
it is unleakable, and one only presumes that the IC cut off on short circuit
would work with leakage...however I cannot confirm this.

george pontis

In article <jef6b1lkd6868d8oiegevhc4sr3qfrtfab@4ax.com>, E-mailAddressWitheld@No-
ISP.com says...

A slight electrical leakage would not be the total demise of an aquarium. Several
have reported here that they actually experienced breakage of the glass on a live
heater and did not realize it until they put their hand in the water and felt a
tingle. It would be possible to get a dangerous shock from such a fault, which is
why I like to use a GFI ( aka GFCI, ground fault current interrupter ) for
everything connected to the aqaurium.

The reason that this is not felt by the fish is that they are not "grounded" as we
might be when we stand on the floor and touch a live wire. The fish and all the
water in the tank might be floating up and down at the mains frequency but they
don't feel any potential difference across their bodies. This is the electrical
equivalent of us not sensing the motion of the earth in orbit around the sun.

Some people like to use a ground rod in their aquarium. When this is done the
situation changes when the heater leaks or fails completely. Now there is a
potential difference through the water between the heater and the grounding rod.
The fish could feel this and if the leakage is strong enough, as in a broken glass
tube, it could affect their behavior or harm them. By locating the ground rod near
the heater then the effect would be strong between those two but would rapidly
diminish with distance, depending on the conductivity of the water. Hopefully the
aquarist also uses a GFI, which would trip quickly in response to a fault.

There are several stainless or titanium tube heaters available now. I happen to
have an inexpensive one from Via Aqua that comes with a grounded AC cord. Although
I have not measured it I suspect that the metal tube is connected to ground. This
would make for a safer configuration which would not significantly electrify the
water even if the heater seal had a significant failure.

stephen g. giannoni

Am currently using a Won-Pro Titanium tube type of heater which I
believe doesn't use grounding.

My thought was to use a very small neon lamp as a sensitive current
indicator, then just check between a temporary water probe through the
neon lamp to each side of the supply ...

rocco moretti

What do other people use for GFCI? I was looking for a GFCI for my tank
the other day, and couldn't find much. I found the intstall-in-the-wall
outlets, but since I rent, that isn't an ideal option. I was looking for
a GFCI power strip, but the only thing I could find was a two outlet
extention cord and ungodly expensive. Does someone make a GFCI
powerstrip (like a surge protector, but with GFCI) at a reasonable price?

sylvan butler

Yup.

I just bought the install-in-the-wall gfci outlet, a regular outlet, a
dual-gang thin outlet box and cover, cable clamp and an extension cord.

Mount the clamp into a suitable hole in the electrical box.

Cut off the outlet end of the extension cord, pass it into the stand,
thru the cable clamp, into the electrical box and wire it to the gfci
outlet. Wire from the "load" terminals of the gfci outlet to the
regular outlet. (Could use some 6in pieces cut from the end of the
extension cord.) Make sure all 'green' wires are connected together and
to the ground terminals of the two outlets. Tighten the cable clamp.

Mount the electrical box in a convenient place inside the stand. (I just
used some hex-drive, #10 x 3/4in "sheet metal" screws thru the back of
the box into the wood). Do not use screws that are too long!

Mount the outlets onto the box and install the cover plate.

Now your stand has four, built-in, GFCI protected outlets.

sdb
--
Wanted: Omnibook 800 & accessories, cheap, working or not
sdbuse1 on mailhost bigfoot.com

ann r

I bought a GFIC that plugs into the wall outlet. My powerstrip then plugs
into the GFIC. Got it at Lowe's. I think it was around $10.00.

--
Ann R

rocco moretti

(Searches Lowe's website) Is this it?

http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=145275-33536-30339011&lpage=none

(Sorry if the link doesn't work - they seem to be zip code specific.)

Shock Buster Plug-In GFCI Adapter, ~$10 [Small yellow rectangle with a
single outlet, and two buttons (Test & Reset?) above]

ann r

That's the one. It worked when my heater glass broke. It popped and
wouldn't reset until we found the problem (broken heater was in our SW tank
refugium hanging on back so we couldn't easily see it).
--
Ann R