MH lighting and outlets

Hi guys, I was wondering those who have MH lighting, do you guys run them from the same outlet that the rest of your equipment is on, or do you try to split up the outlets? I didn't want to plug in the MH and have the outlet short out. What do you guys do? thanks

 

I have mine on the same outlet. I have 760 watts of lighting, 250 watt heater (on at night, rarely), plus skimmer, Dart, and small reactor pump. No signs of any problems. Edit - plus the fan for the MH ballasts, fan for the light unit itself, plus the moonlights.

 

My entire setup currently runs off the same circuit on a GFI Plug. No issues here, but I my plan is to separate it out to another circuit and GFI. This way a bad pump or short doesn't cause an entire power failure.

 

i have my tank stuff on its own circuit.

 

To be on the safe side, try adding all the watts together for a total, then
divided by the voltage and that will give you the amps used. bare in mind
that only things that run continuously are the those consider load, return
pump, water movement, etc! and you shouldn't exceed 80% of the nominal capacity
of the circuit (breaker).

 

Thanks for the replies, I will look into the load and the capacity.

 

Everything in my tank is running off the same outlet...

 

Mine runs off 220v not 110v like the rest of the tank

 

I never recommend putting everything on your tank on the same circuit. A small failure can cause the circuit to trip, and if you are not home, you could have a dead tank from a powerhead shorting out.

Besides that you should not have more than about 1200 watts plugged into a single 15 am circuit.

So when ever possible, I have 2 circuits setup for the tank, so you have the high power items spread across both circuits, and have the water movement spread across both circuits as well. Then when one circuit trips for some reason 1/2 of your tank is still running, so you have a very good chance of not loosing any life out of the tank.

Kim

 

very good idea. But, do you know how to make sure that the outlets are on different circuits? I know that many times, outlets that are close to each other will run off the same circuit.