Grounding Probes Worth It?
- Thread starter CoralReefer1019
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Yes
Do look for the thread here on them and how to use em.
Salty1962
Wrasse and SPS Lover
Absolutely! Just imagine a heating element that has burst open and you put your hand in the tank, your grounded, with it burst open. It could kill you. Believe me, it's happened to me. Now I don't setup a tank without one. Also eliminates stray voltage that's not good for your livestock
Chiefmaster30
Valuable Member
I’m glad I saw this! I’ve already had to deal with this in one of my tanks when a light went bad. I didn’t no there was such a simple solution. Thanks!
rynosaurus
Active Member
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It’s would be total worth it I have had a heating element go bad also, gave me a little stick every time I touched the water. But I have another question, if you have the ground probe and something goes bad how would you ever find out?
ontop27
Well-Known Member
Read the 1000 debates on here. Im on the no side of the fence...short analogy, pigeons survive on the electric wire because there is no ground, if you grounded them they would fry, same kinda concept you will have some stray electricity but with no place to go your livestock is mostly safe, give it a ground and it becomes bad.
Brew12
Electrical Gru
Ideally, you would run your system on a GFCI. When you had a piece of electrical equipment fail it trips the GFCI so you know you need to find it. I actually run my system on 4 separate GFCI's. One for each heater, my skimmer, and my return pump. That way only the failed piece of equipment gets de-energized.
While this analogy is great for explaining the impact of grounds on land it doesn't hold true in salt water. You cannot shock a marine fish. They are much less conductive than the water around them. This is why you cannot use electrofishing in estuaries or the ocean. All of the current flows around them leaving them relatively unaffected.
ontop27
Well-Known Member
Here us a good thread about it
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1982006
Grounding probes create current
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1982006
Grounding probes create current
Brew12
Electrical Gru
They do carry current. In fact, to work, they must. This isn't a bad thing in a marine system. The bird on a wire stays safe because everything around them is an insulator except for the energized wire itself. For marine fish, everything around them is a conductor. When my linemen work on my 500kV system we deenergize the lines and hang grounding conductors. We do this to eliminate static and to protect against line energization. The concept is that it keeps the linemen safe by allowing the current to flow around them instead of through them. Salt water acts just like these personal protective grounds, except that they are always surrounding the fish. The water itself is what protects the fish from current.
There are 2 broad categories of voltage that exist in our system. One of the is induced voltages. With no faulted equipment and no ground probe my tank reads at around 23 volts. This is due to inductive and capacitance interaction between the magnetic fields and the conductive salt water. A ground probe reduces this to zero while only conducting a few milliamps. The energy transfer is not efficient enough (too much impedance) to sustain much current. Some research indicates that this induced voltage can cause skin irritations in fish and possibly even HTLLE but I haven't seen anything conclusive. You will not feel any shock from this type of voltage even if a ground probe is not used.
What we really worry about is fault current. These are the ones you can feel when you put your hand in an ungrounded tank. This means you have an exposed conductor in your system. This exposed conductor is most likely copper and will corrode very quickly leaching copper and other contaminants into your water. If you use a ground probe with a GFCI it will trip immediately letting you know you have a problem. If you use a GFCI without a ground probe you either have to wait until you get a build up of salt creep, put your hand in the tank, or have a second fault before the GFCI will trip. If I have copper leaching into my system, I want to know ASAP.
I will agree that is is very important to find and fix faulted electrical components. Using a combination of GFCI and ground probes makes identifying it much quicker and easier.Ill rephrase as a saftey device maybe they are good, but if you have stray voltage dont buy a grounding probe, find the problem and fix it haha. Can we all agree on that one?
As a side note, if you use titanium heaters, you have no reason to buy a ground probe as these act the same way. I am amused when told that people would never run a ground probe because of the harm they can cause and yet use titanium heaters.
Not really. Some of us work with electricity as a profession and have done so for decades so we rely on the science to create a safety to we are not injured.Ill rephrase as a saftey device maybe they are good, but if you have stray voltage dont buy a grounding probe, find the problem and fix it haha. Can we all agree on that one?
A fluorescent bulb gives off emf and is pulled in by the salt water , an ac pump does the same. All electronic devices do this. All of them.
Not just a heater going bad nor a piece of bad equipment.
If enough Electricity builds up in the tank it has a field of electricity around it. If you put you're hand in it while you are grounded , even by a static field from you're carpet ), you create circuit and the electricity goes through you.
ontop27
Well-Known Member
Wouldnt it travel the path of least resistance?
Brew12
Electrical Gru
It does, which is why current doesn't impact a marine fish. They have much higher resistance than the water around them.
If a ground probe isn't installed then you can become the path of least resistance when you stick your hand into the tank.
ontop27
Well-Known Member
Thay was too the comment above me for the guy saying we are the ground. I was asking if there is a ground probe would it travel through the probe rather than us.
