Advantages of grounding lights...

[coolcat310]

I don't know where to ask this, so I thought I might ask here.

I just bought some timers (it's a two prong), but my lights are the grounded ones so I also bought a three prong adapter. Now my question is. What's the advantage of grounding the lights? Will this generate an electric current in the water if it's close to it? I don't know much about electricity so any help would be great.

Thanks.

coolcat310

[Nanook]

Water and Electricity do NOT mix!! I would ground every last gadget associated with an aquarium. Use GFCIs like your life depended on them, it may one day.


Nanook

[azwhippinboy]

Listen to Nanook! The purpose of grounding an electrical appliance is that in the event of an inadvertant leak of electricity into the casing of an appliance (as from malfunction, frayed wiring, or contact of electric parts with SALT WATER) will result in the electric current taking the path of least resistance. In a grounded appliance this path is to the house ground. If your appliance isn't properly grounded then the path of least resistance could be through the water, or more importantly through you to the floor (ground). Imagine the scenario of you with your hand in the tank and your improperly grounded light touching your other hand. :eek2: Seems bad to me. I will be the first to admit that I am no electrician, and hopefully one of our fellow RC'ers who is will help expound my attempt at an explanation. I also recommend some GFCI's around the tank as well.

-Harley

[WaterKeeper]

If you have fluorescent lights it is important to have the hood grounded to make them work properly. One of our electrical wizards will explain it better but it has to do with ionizing the gas along the length of the tube.

[mogurnda]

What they said, especially about you not being the path to ground. That would suck.

[Paladin]

Originally posted by Nanook
Water and Electricity do NOT mix!! I would ground every last gadget associated with an aquarium. Use GFCIs like your life depended on them, it may one day.
Nanook
I can personally attest to this: I just set up my 125 tank, but before moving it up against the wall, I installed a GFCI as was recommended by the aquarium books and sites. I had everything plumbed in the cabinet below per my plan that I put together. Unfortunately, things don't always work out as you plan them to. In short, I was testing my set-up and a minor flood occurred in the cabinet, and much of the water poured over an outlet extension that was running some pumps. Everything immediately shut off, thanks to the GFCI.

[WaterKeeper]

Something I didn't know but was brought up in a thread last month. Unless you have a grounding probe in your tank a GFI does not break the circuit if something falls into your tank. I found this out when an end cap came off a PC and it fell into the tank while it had juice flowing. Spark city and the GFI didn't do anything. Later found that without the water to earth ground the GFI doesn't see a fault and the line stays hot.

[azwhippinboy]

WaterKeeper,
While we're on the subject, do you know where the best place for the ground is? Main tank or sump--or maybe it doesn't matter since all the water is 'touching' in a way? Just wondering.

Also, one little point. You may not wan to place the vital 'life support' equipment for your reef on a GFCI. I have read several posts where someones whole reef went into meltdown because a GFCI was tripped and shut down the pumps/chiller/ etc. Sometimes the GFCI was in another room and the tank was merely downstream of the circuit. I don't know where the middle ground is on personal safety vs tank crashing is. Just food for thought. Me personally, I have a GFCI-- I figure even if my reef setup cost $5000 to replace then thats well worth my safety. Besides, an average 1 day to 2 day hospital stay is well over $5000 these days.....

-Harley

[WaterKeeper]

Harley,

Good point on the GFI. It protects all plugs that are after it in a room or circuit. Here is some other stuff:

Originally posted by medik13
All you need is one grounding probe. I put mine in the sump. Most outlets are grounded, but it is easy to test for. Just get a cheap circuit tester. Plug on end the ground and on into a slot. It should light. You can plug it into a power strip. That shouldn't be a problem. Before I had one, I too was skeptical. But my fish would get HLLE and fin rot within a couple of days. Now the problem is gone. It saved me money, first hand so I thought I would let you know! I have also read articles published by professionals, doing experiments and majority says to use one. They say the voltage that is pulled out is far more advantageous than the tiny amount of current it does produce, if any. They also state that every tank contains an amount of voltage, smaller tanks have a safer amount than larger. Makes sense!

and

Originally posted by hesaias
You cannot remove INDUCTED current from your tank. This is what a ground probe is for. Inducted current comes from the electrical feilds created by powerheads, heaters, pumps and the like. air insulates, so this inducted current is undetectable in the case of an external pump. However, water is a conductor, so the voltage just kinda sits in your tank with no way out. The amount of voltage we are talking is very small. To a human, its barely noticable, but to a fish, is is a major stressor. Ich, HLLE, and a host of other stress dependant malidies can attack and kill a stressed out fish, whereas with out the stress, the fises immune system can fend off the attack.

Grounding probes are for healthy, stress free fish, not safety.

An added benefit to the grounding probe is that when used in conjunction with a GFCI, if you break a heater, the GFCI will see a difference in the amount of current between the hot and common legs of the outlet and trip. Gfcis work by comparing the current in on the hot leg, and the current on the common leg and measuring the difference. If the difference is more than 10mA, it trips. 10 mA will make you **** on yourself, but 20A, what your breaker trips at, will kill you dead as a bag of hammers. The grounding probe will carry the voltage to ground, thus the measurement between hot and common will be more than 10 mA and trip.

If you want to build a safety into your system so a tripped GFCI won't wipe out your tank, pay an electritian to run a seperate circuit and power half your lights and pumps off of each circuit. That way, if one trips, everything will be fine till you can fix the problem.

Also, true household GFCIs replace your wall outlet, and are not the strip outlets with a reset you plug into an outlet. The cost of your life is worth alot more than your tank. The cost of your tank is alot more than the cost of having an electritian run you a second outlet. Youy only have to get electrocuted once to die. Its not worth the risk.

That whole tread is located here:

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=176895&perpage=25&highlight=grounding&pagenumber=2