Has anyone ever heard of this?

So I went to work in the sump for a sec earlier today which is in the garage. I went out there barefoot and noticed when I put my hand in the water I felt a slight tingling/shock on a cut that I have on one of my fingers. So I preceded to unplug devices one by one to see if I could figure out what was causing it to happen. Now here comes the interesting part. The device that seems to have been causing it was my grounding probe.So I thought maybe it was the outlet that I had it plugged into,so I tried it on a diff one with the same result. The one device that is supposed to stop that from happening was causing it to happen. Has anyone ever heard of a grounding probe somehow introducing stray voltage into a tank?

 

What you are most likely feeling is the grounding probe taking the current back to ground or completing the "loop"

 

These might help:
http://www.3reef.com/forums/general-reef-topics/electrical-help-gfci-ground-probe-53075.html
http://www.3reef.com/forums/asap/stray-voltage-help-53282.html
http://www.3reef.com/forums/general-reef-topics/shocking-find-may-save-life-51095.html

 

Thanks for the links but now I am confused again. Should I put the ground probe back in? I took it out and feel nothing in the water now. argh what to do?

 

Can you explain your electrical situation in more detail? GFCI? Powerstrips? etc..

 

Do you happen to have a digital multimeter (DMM)? If you do, you can set it to DC mode, ground one end and stick the other in the tank to see if you have stray voltage. Then put the ground probe in, put the ground lead of the DMM on the ground of the ground probe, and the hot lead of the DMM in the water and see if you see any difference. What you could have felt was the grounding probe "pulling" the stray voltage out of the tank since you had an open wound (which you shouldn't expose to the water anyway, for shame) j/k Without the probe in the tank, the voltage will travel to the next electrical device that is grounded to close the electrical loop. With the probe, you will serve as another ground, as the human body is very conductive to electricity. Remember that current will follow the path of least resistance and with the ground probe in place, the other devices in the tank have more electrical impedence than the human body. Your cut just makes it more noticeable. I hope that all this makes sense.

 

Yeah that makes sense. I have tried the mm but put in ac not dc. I can try it on dc to and see if that makes a diff. I have two power strips in the garage that are plugged into two gfci outlets. The two outlets are on a dedicated 20 amp breaker.

 

I also just tried it with dc. it wil only register in 2000m or 200 m. Anyways. I think the main things causing it are two visa therm heaters b/c when I unplug them nothing registers on the meter. Now, this is my question. If I have everything plugged in and put my hand in the water I feel the tingling but nothing reads on the meter. Now if I unplug the grounding probe and put my hand in the water I don't feel anything at all but the meter does register a small amount. Question is this. Should I leave the probe off or leave it on? I am at my whits end here. I plan on ordering a titanium heater to replace my stealth heaters. I need strong heaters as my sump is in the garage and it gets pretty cold here in NC during the winter. Any recommendation as to what titanium heater to go with.

Also. With the heaters unplugged and ground probe in I still feel a slight tingling. So when I get a new heater should I plug my grounding probe back in or leave it out.

 

ive heard of this.........hmm i cant remember if reefsparky is the one with the info or not...could be try to pm reefsparky i think he is the one who help me.....i think it is possible for the probe to cause the volatge, depending on the wiring of the outlet... or something..

 

yeah...I will have to see. I tested in a/c which is what everyone was telling me to test in and got readings of 0 both with and without the grounding probe but still no tingling without probe and tingling with probe.