i got shocked by my tank when the heater shattered and left the metal coils bare in the tank and i put my arm in it.
thats kind of my point:) not only are heaters not insulated, but they probably draw the most current compared to any other equipment next to lights. although the coils in a heater are a poor conductor, the scenario you described is probably one of the worse ones i can imagine other than droping a light fixture in the water. i dont want to say its impossible to get electrocuted by a 120VAC 15 amp house circuit, but you would have to try VERY hard:) knocked on your ass if you the circuit has a full load on it? oh yeah! electrocuted? not likely. contrary to what people think, water actually makes it that much more difficult to accomplish.
and for those that dont know(you would be surprised ;D), getting electrocuted means you die from electricty. completely different than getting shocked.
Had a shock from a heater as well, my preference is to be neither electrocuted nor shocked. I think these GFCI’s are very important. My entire setup is on them, wet and dry, through two different outlets.
asked earlier, but not answered:
if all my electric [cords receptacles & equipment] are above the concrete floor between 8 inches and 6 feet, am i still not safe?
i got shocked by my tank when the heater shattered and left the metal coils bare in the tank and i put my arm in it.
thats kind of my point:) not only are heaters not insulated, but they probably draw the most current compared to any other equipment next to lights. although the coils in a heater are a poor conductor, the scenario you described is probably one of the worse ones i can imagine other than droping a light fixture in the water. i dont want to say its impossible to get electrocuted by a 120VAC 15 amp house circuit, but you would have to try VERY hard:) knocked on your ass if you the circuit has a full load on it? oh yeah! electrocuted? not likely. contrary to what people think, water actually makes it that much more difficult to accomplish.
and for those that dont know(you would be surprised ;D), getting electrocuted means you die from electricty. completely different than getting shocked.[/quote]
you only need 50 miliamps across your heart to kill you, there is enough in a 9v battery to kill you under the right conditions.
Voltage just pushes the current through you, the higher the voltage the easier the path through your body, it all depends upon your resistance, if you touch a 9v battery with your dry finger you won’t feel anything, if you wet your finger and try again you will get a current flow and you will feel it tingle
the important thing is not to let it cross your chest, 2 arms in the tank is where you can have problems if something is amiss as it will cross your chest.
[quote=“moliken, post:24, topic:2300”]
asked earlier, but not answered:
if all my electric [cords receptacles & equipment] are above the concrete floor between 8 inches and 6 feet, am i still not safe?[/quote]
distance from the floor matters not, if you have a piece of equipment that shorts or finds another path to ground you can have a fire or worse, GFI outlets detect problems in nano seconds and shut the power off
you only need 50 miliamps across your heart to kill you, there is enough in a 9v battery to kill you under the right conditions.
got to love statements like this >LOL< just about ANYTHING can kill you “under the right conditions”. how many people do you suppose participate in the hobby? how many cases have you heard of people being electrocuted by their fishtanks? i will bet you that more people die a year becuase of vending machines falling on them than electrocution by way of fishtank! Its just ridiculous to make something seem SO much more dangerous than it really is. Anyone that has seen my electrical setup will tell you that i take saftey seriously. All of my electrical connections are in conduit with a watertight acess box. In no way am i trying to make lite of the situation or say that there are not dangers involved, but come on.
i think paul was referring to the stuff not getting wet, but could be wrong. the dryer the better is always a good idea, but Tim is right, it wont do much in the way of preventing an internal short like Glen had. A GFCI would have turned off the outlet very quickly and would have definitely mitigated some of the damage, if not preventing it entirely. The problem with relying on the breaker is that even with a short, you might not necessarily draw enough current through the breaker to trip it. Most of the time somthing like this will definitely trip a breaker, but its not worth the risk.
you only need 50 miliamps across your heart to kill you, there is enough in a 9v battery to kill you under the right conditions.
got to love statements like this >LOL< just about ANYTHING can kill you “under the right conditions”. how many people do you suppose participate in the hobby? how many cases have you heard of people being electrocuted by their fishtanks? i will bet you that more people die a year becuase of vending machines falling on them than electrocution by way of fishtank! Its just ridiculous to make something seem SO much more dangerous than it really is. Anyone that has seen my electrical setup will tell you that i take saftey seriously. All of my electrical connections are in conduit with a watertight acess box. In no way am i trying to make lite of the situation or say that there are not dangers involved, but come on.[/quote]
you took the precautions, so should everyone else. we’re not saying you can get shocked daily in this hobby, just that for less than the tank itself you can protect yourself from some pretty big “if’s”
i learned the hard way, and even now i still learn that i should have gfi on my lights and will do that asap.
the 50mA is fact, the 9v battery is the “under right conditions”
im not picking on you man, i promise. im simply trying to convery the reality of being electrocuted by your tank.
the 50mA is fact,
im not arguing. i have no idea what it is, but i wouldnt be surprised if your right. however, if all it took is
2 arms in the tank is where you can have problems if something is amiss as it will cross your chest.
i would die weekly. I work with 240, 120, and 90 volt 15 amp electric every day. Most of the time the load on the circuit is less than 10 amps but it still sucks. I actually just got shocked last week by a full 12 amps from my left to my right hand. Sticking my hand in a dark power supply cabinet at night with my right hand on the door i got a nice handfull of a a bare output cable with the other. A cable thats not supposed to be bare mind you! Definitely sucked. Probably one of the worse shocks ive gotten personally but nothing that thousands of people that work with low voltages dont get bit by on a daily basis. Id say 99% of the guys in my department splice hot on a daily basis.
my friend was an electrical engineer for GE for 20 years and he designed test equipment and radar systems for the space program and he told me about extreme high voltage units that had a mezmorizing power, you open a large cabinet and there was some 300k volt or something unit glowing red and you just had the want to grab ahold of it so powerful lol!
they used to have to test the voltage and you’d get the probe about 4-6 inches away and it would jump the gap.
have mixed feelings on this. if anything shorts out and power is not killed emedately then there is always that risk of fire. but yes if tank is completely down then you could have tank crash. but better than fire. that is were the scary part is more than getting electrutied. thats why i am so glad mine tripped off and was in a metal ballast box.
just to clarify. the only thing im suggesting is to leave your insulated return pump on a non-GFCI outlet. This will protect you against both the hazards associated with electric/water and the chance of crashing your tank because of a faulty GFCI that trips for no apparent reason(which they do!).
ok here’s my question, does my current usa nova extreme pro 6x54w T5s require a gfci outlet? it does not have the outside ballast that HQI’s have
i only have the 1 5 outlet gfi and i went around the corner for a seperate circuit for the lights and i dont want to have to buy another one, and i dont want to overload the single outlet with the full tanks load.
I’ve never had my gfi circuits trip out, except when I dumped water on my VHO ballast. If you’re worried about faulty tripping and wiping out the tank, put things on separate gfi’d circuits. I think someone said it best earlier, I’ll take a dead tank to a dead body any day, especially since I’m not the only one sticking my hand in the tank. And yes, even that 5 watt MJ powerhead can kill you, you know the one that has the 120v cord running into the tank.