Guarding against electrical shock: What steps do you take?

[laverda]

In addition to GFCI outlets and drip loops, I put these covers over the outlet to prevent water from splashing on them.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Commerc...?MERCH=REC-_-PLP_Browse-_-NA-_-300849073-_-N&

I have the same.
Just yesterday I over flowed my salt mixing container. I was using a large enough pump the water came out at an angle so it sprayed the extension cord with my mixing pump and it instantly started to crackle and pop then burst into flames. A drip loop did not help in this case. Luckily I was right there and blew the fire out. It burned up the outlet the cord was plugged into. It is amazing how quickly a little saltwater and electricity can start a fire. The water was only at 1.020 or less.

 

[Brew12]

This from an electrician friend CGI bars will not stop this. Nor outlets. They only measure the amperage going out, and returning. They trip I think at .2 of an amp. What everyone is talking about is Not a ground fault situation there is no load to cause an amp drop. The only electrical device that will prevent it is an ARC fault device which is exactly what is occurring.

It is true that a GFCI/RCD are not designed to detect and isolate arcing faults but they often will trip during these events. When water gets sprayed into a power strip or into an outlet the arcing normally goes to both the ground and neutral conductors. As long as some arcing goes to ground (0.05A in the US) the GFCI should trip. For that reason it isn't uncommon for GFCI/RCD devices to trip on arcing faults. I'm sure they have prevented or reduced the severity of many house fires. Having an AFCI breaker in the panel is a much more reliable way to prevent damage from arcing.

 

[ppatches24]

So one of my jbj 800 watt heaters was leaking power or what ever you want to call it slowly building up over time. Unplug 'heater 2' and the voltage goes to 0. Plug in other good heater no readings. Plug in bad heater starts to creep up slowly. This is explains a lot.

 

[jiffyjhn]

on my first Reef tank build I was cheap and made a DIY overflow on my 120G tank. One day the overflow failed and water leaked all over my apartment and eventually got to the floor below me, bot onto some electrical stuff and caused some smoke. I was notified at work and had to pay for damages to the apartment.

That day I learned not to be cheap in this hobby.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Jay, this isn't exactly correct. Well, what you say about the bird is correct, and it would also be correct for fresh water fish, but it isn't accurate for salt water fish.
An electrical potential (Voltage) is almost never a problem by itself. What we need to be concerned with is current. Current only flows when there is a difference in potential connected by a conductor. A bird landing on a 46,000V transmission line will be at 46,000V. If they reach across the insulator to ground, they now have a 46,000V difference in potential across the relatively low resistance of their body so a massive amount of current will flow. Blammo.

With marine fish, they live in a conductor. If your tank is grounded, either through a ground probe or grounded titanium heater (or salt creep) than the fish will be grounded. If your system is ungrounded, the fish will be at whatever potential the water in the tank is at. Since salt water is so conductive, the voltage anywhere in the water will be within a few millivolts of anywhere else in the water. It is physically impossible to develop a large difference in potential across the fish to get current flowing through the fish. This would be similar to the bird living inside the wire. It wouldn't matter what voltage the wire was at or if the wire touched ground next to the bird, you wouldn't be able to shock the bird.

Hope that makes sense.

I think understand what you are saying, but I'm not sure what the fish health implications are for this.

Functionally, the only issue I ever see with electrical issues in marine tanks is with a short circuit, you get chemical reactions (hydrolysis?) one of which seems to be the formation of sulfides from the sulfate in the water. I've never observed any other fish health issue related to stray voltage, or even full short circuits in marine aquariums. I've not seen any articles/papers that examined that either. I just keep hearing "stray voltage" implicated in all manner of fish health problems, and I suspect this is all misdirection or over extrapolation, else why would I have never seen it? I personally think it is a red herring....people have an issue, measure stray voltage, find it and then declare that was the root cause of the problem.

I have a question - due to my background in multi-species exhibits, I don't really think in terms of "freshwater" or "saltwater", but rather, I look at it as a gradient of dissolved solids as a continuum, and I have systems ranging from RO/DI to 36 ppt. I don't see health concerns caused by electrical issues across that entire spectrum. What is your distinction between FW and SW?

Jay

 

[DrZoidburg]

@Jay Hemdal
Electrolysis is what's going on. Hydrolysis is when something reacts with water. Also to add reading once on study hlle possibly formed as a result of stray voltage. Can't say for sure.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Thanks - I knew it was an -olysis of some sort (grin). If you ever find that study, please let me know. I've never been able to find anything, even Google scholar only gives me my own study back (grin). Stray voltage was ruled out in that as a variable.

Jay

 

[WVNed]

Once again a discussion breaks down do to vocabulary.

Stray voltage - Voltage somewhere outside of an insulated electrical conductor where it is supposed to be.
There are 3 causes for stray voltage.

Static - Something like your shoes either accepts or loses electrons to another surface like a carpet.
a potential develops many times in the 1000s of volts. You get a spark when you touch another person or a doorknob.
That spark can destroy valuable electronics in computers or other systems though. Special mats and grounding straps
a technician wears are used to prevent that. Lightning is an extreme case of static charge.

Induction - When ever a current moves through a surface it creates a magnetic field. Conversely when ever a conductor moves through a magnetic field it creates a current. Many wonderful things we use are possible because of this property. It makes things like electric motors and transformers possible. It is so useful we have made power lines and wires go almost everywhere. But a magnetic field projects in all directions and many times creates a current potential and thus a voltage in things we don't want. They don't even have to be metal. How much potential it creates depends on how good a the object in the fields couples with the source. Most times while a voltage is present there is no power available. Power is the ability to do work. Even large voltage with a tiny current cant accomplish much or harm you but you may detect it especially if you have a cut on your skin. Undamaged skin has a high enough resistance that it protects us most of the time.
This is the kind of stray voltage we detect usually in our fish tanks. Mostly because good meters that can read it have become so cheap.

Faults - Faults are another matter. This is where a conductor in an electrical system is touching or has a path where it shouldn't be. The trouble happens when the path is incomplete and we complete it with our body.
Then the conductor that is faulted sees your body as a load just as if it were a lightbulb, aquarium heater or pump.
It then tries to power it based on the resistance in the circuit. So now you are part of a circuit that is commonly 110-120V and has 15 or more amps available to it here in the US. You would be surprised how much power a piece of glass with a moist film and salt can conduct.
GFI tries to detect this condition by sensing if any power leaving on one conductor is going anywhere other than coming back on the other conductor. If it sees an imbalance it disconnects the circuit.

Faults test at the same voltage as the source supplying them. So you will measure over a 100 volts on a meter if something is energizing your tank from for example a damaged power cord. If you are kneeling to reach in a sump on carpet or floor exposed to salt spray or standing barefoot on concrete or carpet and reach into a tank you will get the snot knocked out of you.

I hope that helps.

 

[Brew12]

I think understand what you are saying, but I'm not sure what the fish health implications are for this.

There are none as far as I am aware. The only reason I point it out is that some people will use the bird on a wire analogy as a reason why they won't use ground probes. They feel that adding the ground probe is like the bird touching the wire and ground at the same time. To them, no ground probe means no current flow through the fish when in reality it doesn't have any impact on current flow through the fish.

I just keep hearing "stray voltage" implicated in all manner of fish health problems, and I suspect this is all misdirection or over extrapolation, else why would I have never seen it? I personally think it is a red herring....people have an issue, measure stray voltage, find it and then declare that was the root cause of the problem.

I completely agree. If induced voltages were actually a problem with fish health we wouldn't be able to maintain marine systems in the manner that we do. Every system with AC current carrying electrical wiring in or near it, even systems that read 0V because of a ground probe, have induced voltages. And yes, what we call DC pumps actually use a form of AC to make the motor turn, so they will induce voltages. It's easy to blame that which we don't understand.

I have a question - due to my background in multi-species exhibits, I don't really think in terms of "freshwater" or "saltwater", but rather, I look at it as a gradient of dissolved solids as a continuum, and I have systems ranging from RO/DI to 36 ppt. I don't see health concerns caused by electrical issues across that entire spectrum. What is your distinction between FW and SW?

I guess I always think in terms of less than 5ppt being FW and above 25ppt being SW with anything in between being brackish. For the purposes of this conversation, anything above 5ppt would make the water conductive enough to make meaningful current flow through a fish nearly impossible. On the flip side anything below 0.1ppt makes the water such an excellent insulator that it will also protect the fish. For the salinity ranges in between 0.1ppt and 5ppt I would say that it would take a very unlikely sequence of failures for electricity to harm a fish but it isn't completely impossible and could definitely be done intentionally.

 

[WVNed]

The only problems with an aquarium and sea life I remember were with sharks and predators. It was explained that
they have the ability to sense week magnetic fields and use them to hunt. If stay voltage and magnetic fields are present in their captive environment it causes problems with them and they do poorly. The human caused fields are much greater in strength than the ones detected by animals in the sea and it disrupts their behavior sort of like if you are exposed to a constant painfully loud noise.

 

[Mehlvis]

Electricity and water don't mix as it is bad for your health! Running an aquarium shouldn't cause us to fear things like electrical shock but we should have a healthy respect for it and take precautions when setting up a tank and working in our tanks. Let's talk about it today!

1. How do you take care to guard against electrical shock or electrical mishaps around your tank?

2. Have you ever been shocked or had an electrical mishap that was aquarium related?

I’m currently working on a building and will certainly make this a consideration now!

 

[Brian_68]

Buy quality name brand and certified power strips etc. Many of the failures come from non-certified products.

 

[Paul B]

Well lets see, I went to trade school for 4 years to be an electrician, then the Army trained me in electrical things, then my union sent me to school for almost 8 years while I worked as an electrician apprentice and worked as a Journeyman electrician for almost fifty years and I still get shocked when I put batteries in one of those little penlight flashlights or look at a National Geographic special about electric eels.

 

[BZOFIQ]

Well lets see, I went to trade school for 4 years to be an electrician, then the Army trained me in electrical things, then my union sent me to school for almost 8 years while I worked as an electrician apprentice and worked as a Journeyman electrician for almost fifty years and I still get shocked when I put batteries in one of those little penlight flashlights or look at a National Geographic special about electric eels.

That looks like Ryan from BRS.

Perhaps working on new series.

 

[G Santana]

I'm covered!!!

 

[heybae]

My ato flooded my tank Bc I have no sump went the cheap route first Bc I didn’t think. Tank overflowed onto floor and splashed on outlit. Seen smoke and poping. I atleast had some large drip loops and tank is in my bed room I herd it before it caused a real problem Thank god. Had to do emergency water change went from salt to fresh. I did get zapped in this process trying to turn the electric off but I didn’t loose anything.

now I have a new ato that has a box i place into the tank with back up fail safes so much better.

 

[JasPR]

this just happened a few weeks ago-- a little water in this strip and I smelled something burning-- thank GOD I was home.

 

[ScottB]

That looks like Ryan from BRS.

Perhaps working on new series.

Was just about to post the same.

 

[kenjung]

Multiple times, all due to crappy Hydor Korallia pumps.

Yep it happened to me somehow GFCI didn't trip.

 

[Reeferstin]

3 times. All were hydor wavemakers leaking electricity

Was this the new generation of the hydor pumps? Gen three ??