Stray voltage in tank

[Brockly]

I watched a million YouTube videos on the topic and there are a lot of folks saying you should have 1-2 volts in your tank or so. The average medium tank likely has 6+ pumps attached to it 1-2 heaters.
What I don’t get is each device contributes stray voltage to the aquarium. That’s how it works. There is no magic shielding from the electromagnetic current that is created. I went and tested everything independently in my tank. And on average you are getting 3-7 volts per device. Heck even my radions being on adds volts to the water. When fully on My tank is hitting about 30 volts.

what’s your experience with this. The reason I ask is I am having a bit of a tank crash and have been going over everything with a fine tooth comb to try and find what might be cause it. This was just the next on the list to test. I have stray voltage but there isn’t a culprit it’s the the accumulation of a devices in a modern tank

 

[fishguy242]

hi ,do you have ground probe? would recommend 1 in tank and 1 in sump

 

[Reef GE]

hi ,do you have ground probe? would recommend 1 in tank and 1 in sump

Why two probes? I have one in DT but not in sump. It would seem one is enough.

 

[fishguy242]

hi, always figure better safe than sorry,had 4 on 240 sep gcfi circuits,75 gal sump,2 in dt ,2 in sump 2 each to circuit 1 &1

 

[Brockly]

hi ,do you have ground probe? would recommend 1 in tank and 1 in sump

Not at the moment I have had one on the tank for a year. But I recently took it offline. As I’ve Been testing. Have you ever tested the volts in your tank? What’s it running at

 

[fishguy242]

never tested been reefing 3 decades,old school trick,peel back cuticle if it tingles,take that back,just 10$ ground probes,safety first ,nothing to play with have been grabbed and burned standing on metal stepstool one hand on metal stool arm in tank ,was able to react pull arm out of water,hand on stool burned in seconds

 

[madweazl]

I had 1.3v (neutral to water) before adding a grounding probe. 30 seems excessive; doesn't mean it's hurting anything but no reason you can't bring that down. And no clue why your lights are adding voltage...

 

[Brockly]

You only have 1.3v with everything running? Nice, I wonder why mine is so high. It seams almost everything arts around 3-4v and I have pretty new pumps etc

 

[excell007]

got curious about the 30 volts so I measured mine. I am only getting .4 on the DT and .8 on the sump. most equipments are on the sump (heater, 2 return pumps, skimmer and submersible UV light. DT have 2 wavemaker and a canister filter. I also have a chiller and I did my measurement while the chiller is running.

 

[Paul B]

Forget stray voltage. It is only there when you are testing it because it is going through your meter to ground. It did not crash your tank