I think my tank killed the power

[dolphins8426]

FYI - This might be an expensive fix. DOH I do not like to mess with electrical stuff. Last time I had some eletrical work done in my house it wasen't cheap. Hopefully you get off easy. Good luck

[daugherty]

no it is not cheap to fix electrical probs unless you know the person doing it. hope you get it fixed soon biff. i want to add another outlet box for my tank but the wire is almost 200 dollars for a hundred feet.

[yote]

With the price of copper right now,Aint no way I'd want to be having to do electrical work done.

[Fastlight]

Originally Posted by daugherty

no it is not cheap to fix electrical probs unless you know the person doing it. hope you get it fixed soon biff. i want to add another outlet box for my tank but the wire is almost 200 dollars for a hundred feet.

unfortunatly this is very tru. Id fix it for you if i lived closer.....and Ive never heard that putting a Gfci protected strip outlet would be negated by another Gfci on that receptical. We plug gfci 3way recepticals into gfci outlets all the time. I will have to ask around about that 1.
also biff i got to thinking if your wire is burning up sometimes the breaker wont trip because a breaker is designed to trip on a short and not with something like that. They now have arc fault breakers for that. And depending on what national electric code you are on your bedrooms and even other rooms may eventually require it. But blah blah let us know what the problem was.And i hope it doesnt cost you and arm and a leg.

[dustin_P74]

i know absolutly nothing about electrical work but thats sucks your tank has been this long without power and hopefully the electrition comes/came today, if not you should have them give you a discount on your price once the work is done

[Piggy]

Originally Posted by lightcs4

Have you checked the grounding on the outlet? There are simple testers you can get for around $5 that will check for the correct wiring on an outlet. It has three prongs to fit the outlet and three lights. You just match the light with the guide on the tester to see if it is wired correctly, has a ground fault, or reverse wired.

And I always heard something similar about GFCI outlets. I was always told you only need one at the beginning of the circuit to protect the whole line. I'm not an electrician though.

I have one of then testers. I wonder if it's on the same circuit as the bathroom? If it is then that woulkd mean it's on a GFCI circuit. So I wouldn't need the GFCI on my tank power strip. Right?

[lightcs4]

Originally Posted by Piggy

I have one of then testers. I wonder if it's on the same circuit as the bathroom? If it is then that woulkd mean it's on a GFCI circuit. So I wouldn't need the GFCI on my tank power strip. Right?

My *understanding* is that anything after the GFCI outlet is also protected as it will trip the GFCI, closing off the entire leg of the circuit. However, I work as in computer networking, not an electrician, so I would get verification. Fastlight has an electrical background (he's an electrician). He might know for sure.

[yote]

Your right Lights.Anything thats after GFCI is protected.

[Alexander]

So biff what's the story with the tank? Did you ever have anyone show up? I'm starting to worry for your poor corals.

[Bifferwine]

Yeah, the electrician came yesterday. He took off all the outlet covers of all the outlets that were affected. In out outlet, he found all the wires black and melted together, and the inside of the wall was black. Everything was burned!! He replaced everything and suggested that if we really didn't want this to happen again, that we create a new, separate, bigger circuit just for the tank. Well, that's not going to happen right now ($$$) so instead we rearranged the living room and dining room, put half of the lights (one ballast) on one circuit, and the other ballast on another circuit (before both ballasts were plugged into the same circuit).

Just too much juice!!!

We were really lucky though, that it shut down before the fire spread outside of the wall.