Electrical Problem

Well, I finally gave in and purchased a chiller for my tank. Temps were getting dangerously high this summer and my corals were showing the effects. I figured I put a lot of time and money into my system so a chiller would be a good investment.

Here's where the problem is, as soon as I plug in my chiller (1/10 HP), my GFI trips. Now a little info about my system, I have ALL my stuff plugged into to ONE master GFI in one outlet. This includes my skimmer, several pumps, several lights, several heaters, and several powerheads all plugged into 3 surge protectors which are then all plugged into the master GFI. I KNOW its a lot of crap, scares the $%#* out of me looking behind my tank at 1000 wires running out of my cabinet. I have tried plugging the chiller into other outlets on the same wall, every time the same thing happens, the master GFI trips. Its impossible for me to try another outlet on a different wall without having a cord run across my floor. ANY suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated, I have to figure out a way to make this work.

 

For right know I would just try to plug it in in another plug in your house and see what happens.It could be problem with chiller itself.

 

Basically here is what is happening. You are overloading the circuit. It's probably a 15amp outlet as it is & with all that plugged in it was "sorta fine" Your chiller is a compact AC unit that cools water vs air. When the compressor kicks in with everything drawing current from there it causes it to pop.

Here are your solutions:

1. Plug your compressor into another outlet.

2. Upgrade the outlet & breaker to 20amps (providing your house wiring on that outlet is 12/2 "12 gauge wire")

3. If the outlet itself is GFI, replace it with a regular outlet & at the electrical panel, replace the breaker with a GFI breaker. They don't pop so easily, plus all the outlets on that circuit is now GFI.

4. Worse case run another dedicated outlet to the panel to handle the chiller.

Hope this helps..

 

I installed another 15 amp circuit if your a handy man you can do it yourself. If not i know you can call a electrical contractor and they will do it for about 125.

 

OK I tried plugging the chiller into 2 different outlets on 2 different walls, same thing keeps happening, the GFI that the rest of my tank is plugged into keeps tripping. Only thing I can think of is getting another GFI and trying to split the load of all my equipment on 2 different outlets.

 

It keeps tripping because all those outlets are on the same circuit. You need to run an extension cord from another room that is hopefully on it's own circuit. That's the only way you are going to be able to tell if the chiller is faulty, or just overloading that particular circuit.

 

OK so im pretty sure the chiller is working properly. I got everything working now, the test will be if the GFI trips when the lights turn on in the morning, if so, then the circuit is just overloaded and ill have to figure something out with wiring up another outlet and breaker or upgrading my breaker to 20amps.

 

Well, everything is up and running today and the GFI hasn't tripped yet, so I guess what I did was split all the equipment to 2 different outlets instead of having everything plugged into the same outlets. So far that has worked for me. Thanks for everyone's help.

 

Upgrading your breaker to 20A will not fix your problem, it is actually dangerous if your wire size cannot handle that ampacity. 12/2 is required for 20A circuits. I am a licensed electrician, so running power for my tank is overkill (3 20A GFIs). I would consult an electrician in your area and have another circuit ran dedicated to your tank.