I know a lot of us use power strips for our tanks. You may already know this but they should be replaced every two years. They are a fire hazard. A friend of mine just had his house burnt down from one. The fire Marshall told him that it’s the most common cause. And he didnt even have anything plugged into it. I think if it’s on a gfi either outlet or breaker it’s ok.
GFCI and breaker won’t affect each other, the gfci just detects if less current is returning to the unit and shuts it off if, breaker just pops if too much current enters the unit.
How did the unit start a fire if nothing was plugged into it? No circuit through it means no fire potential.
Another thing to mention is every so often you should change your sump light housing, this can rust and be a hazzard. And in my case, cooling fans over the sump.
Sorry to hear about your friends house 
Dang! Ive got a bunch of them cheap white plastic with the lighted “on” switch, either with or without surge protection in them running for 7-8 years now. or more. but i do keep them mounted high and dry on panels next to the tanks. or under the open stands on the 2x4s . the panels looks like theo old switch boards with everything plugged in.
of course if left on the floor, they dont take kindly to salt water splasing on them, or being covered with dust bunnies and hair balls.
Yeah water has nothing to do with it the short internally and catch on fire. If theyre in a basement without combustibles around it’ll b ok it will just melt I guess this guys was by a couch and caught it on fire. It was all over then his house is gone. I saw in lowes it now says replace every two years
Well, time to go shopping again. they come in packs of 2 or 3.
Thanks for the info Tim
Well Tim I don’t know why it happened with nothing plugged in but it did I saw it the day after it happened. The strip was all crispy and the room it started in was toast. I didn’t know this but drywall will stop a fire. But the window burst out and the fire entered the attic through the sophet add took the second floor out. I thought gfci was a ground fault circuit interrupter and trips when a circuit to ground is made. So any short from power to ground trips. I have a 15a breaker with a 20a gfci outlet a must on aquariums. If you don’t have a gfci get one!! When I didn’t have it I dripped some water on a power strip and it continued to short and burn. With a gfci it trips immediately. And when the urchin ate my pump cord it tripped, also recommend ground probe. It will save you and your livestock. Seriously everyone don’t overlook this. They are cheap to buy and easy to do. I am going to install more for the other tanks. Also in random areas where I think they are needed.
That brings up a good point . . . just because something has an amperage trip rating, doesn’t mean that it trips immediately when the short occurs. The breaker is rated for a duration in milliseconds, or number of cycles. Depending on how cheap the strip, outlet, and/or breaker is will determine the effectiveness of your current interruption. Your powerstrip may trip appropriately when the short occurs, but if the contactor or tripping mechanism has sustained corrosion, it’s capacity to do it’s job will be hindered.
A 20A gfci may very well trip before a 15A circuit breaker or a power strip (more sensitive, and closer to the fault), and is a good idea for that added security and peace of mind.
Good post, this is something that often gets overlooked . . . just ask the Griswolds. lol
Yeah Clark lol. The 15a gfi was too weak so with my setup if it pulls 15a for a long time the breaker trips. Breaker is really protecting the wire from burning up. The gfi trips immediately if anything shorts to ground such as water on strip, outlet, etc. also if a pump shorts. Just imagine what would happen if ur pulling algae from your refugium and the light falls in the water, no gfi and you can be in serious trouble. But with a gfi it’ll trip very fast less than a second.
the GFCI only trips when electricity leaves the circuit, like a juggler throwing up 5 balls and only 2 coming back down he stops juggling. If you purposely drip water in a gfci outlet it shouldn’t trip because the current just goes through the water and completes the circuit back to the gfci, if you tie a metal wire to your sink faucet and put it in the socket, that will trip the gfci. It is to keep people from being electrocuted, not to stop fires.
You’re forgetting Impedance. When a short occurs at a device other than the gfci, downstream (lets say, a power strip plugged into a gfci), the gfci can detect it. The gfci measures change in amperage, in the milliamp range. When you have a circuit, devices operating on that circuit are all essentially resistors. Your current and voltage return should be the same as input in a completed circuit, and usage(resistance) is calculated in Ohms (Ohms law, Voltage law, and Current law). When you short a circuit, current passes to the point of fault and hits massive resistance (generating heat, drawing more input electrical energy than output, Law of conservation of energy). When the gfci reads an imbalance of return current, it trips (under a second . . . around .1 seconds).
If your breaker is running multiple outlets/lights, it may be less sensitive to a fault than a gfci installed directly at a high risk point (like next to a salt water tank). A breaker may take a second or two to trip, vs .1 seconds . . which may mean the difference between a fire/destroyed equipment or not.
Pouring water on an outlet will short it out if you pass current through the hot and neutral contacts, essentially rendering that outlet useless, but will not trip a breaker due to a net zero change in amperage and voltage (you’ve simply completed a circuit). If the water shorts the hot/ground contact, and current does not make it’s way back to the neutral contact, the breaker/gfci WILL trip.
I have told this story at meetings before. But my apartment came extremely close to burning down from a cheap power strip. Salt creep and some moisture had accumulated to the point where excess current was escaping. Luckily, while I was on vacation, my father happened to walk into my apt at the exact moment a small electrical fire ignited. I was using a CFGI outlet which didn’t trip for previously stated reasons; the problem arose when the power strip inhibited the outlet from tripping combined with the salt deposits. Be extremely careful with cheap electronics and salt water for obvious reasons. :
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