stray voltage?

FWIW I have never used a grounding probe.That link was a synopsis of a study conducted at Georgia Tech University.

 

I do have GFCI installed so hopefully that will at least keep me from killing myself.

The probe is near my skimmer output, so bubbles yes. It is brand new out of the package yesterday and calibrated. The temp probe is within inches of it, no other probes near but my heater has its own temp probe but it is in a different section of my sump.

I have not tried it in any different areas of my tank, which when i read that i wondered how big of an idiot i am for not thinking of this. I will try that when i get home. I did try it in a cup of tank water and it was just fine and actually was working just fine after that but the real test will be when it has been in there a few hours and i check it when i get home.

I definitely read that link and take everything into consideration. I appreciate you posting it because any information i read will help me decide what my course of action will be, and since i am the one who will ultimately decide what happens with my tank, I like to make well researched decisions. I read more than 30 articles on Kalk before i decided I would give that a try.

 

Good for you MD.With all the contradictory info. regarding sw tanks just doing research can be a real chore.It shows you care and have respect for other animals.

 

I'm curious, how they are a safety hazard?

 

Neither have I.

Oh, and thank you for the link.

 

As stated in the article (and my first post), a ground probe provides a completed circuit through which current can flow. Someone here not too long ago added a ground probe per the advice of several members and it electrocuted their livestock. As I've always said, if you have a defective device that's leaking power into your tank, replace the device. A ground probe is NOT a safety net, it's a disaster waiting to happen.

 

I agree as long as the aquarist doesn't find out about the bad device by being the first to provide a ground to the voltage source. It's that initial discovery that I'd consider hazardous.

 

So this along with your first post lead me to the question, Why do i have ~10v showing on the multimeter?

 

Very interesting topic, indeed! Looking around, I found some more good reading. Mindy has already read this one I have one tank with a grounding probe and one tank without. The tank that has the probe grabbed my arm and wouldn't let go right away... So I put a probe in and all gone. Still made me not want to risk taking the probe out. My other tank is hooked up to two dedicated circuit breakers with their own GFCI outlet. I've never hooked a multimeter up to this tank though...

no formal training here, just simple laymen observations. Current grabbing my arm: bad, current not grabbing my arm so I can find out what is going wrong: good! But it makes me think about it in a whole. The grounding probe is removing current thru an approved ground source; my BODY is not an approved grounding source. (even though it is a grounding source... still working on that levitation thing).

This link also will talk about your stray voltage, mdb.

http://www.reef2reef.com/forums/ree...89489-grounding-probe-no-grounding-probe.html

one thing I read on this link that is sticking with me: post# 12
"If you have a live wire exposed in the tank, the GFCI will only trip if there is a path to ground which takes some electricity away from the neutral of the GFCI. If not, the tank stays hot until something provides a path to ground.

That path might be you, if you touch the tank. I'd rather have that path be the ground probe as soon as there is an exposed hot wire, not days later when I stick my hand into the tank."

now, we're only talking one situation. But, when do accidents happen? When we aren't paying attention, thinking, oh, I got this!... I've been to enough MSHA trainings to know not to take a risk to me and my family over some creatures in a glass box. Now, is that brash, sure, but I would choose my family over my tank 10 out of 10 times.

it's friday and I want a beer.

 

You can measure electrical currents everywhere-- the fact that salt water ions flow, actually generates an electrical current. Its unavoidable. The open ocean has lots of electrical currents flowing. Some of these are caused by currents flowing through the Earth while others are actually perturbations to local fields caused by the motion of objects (fish, turtles, etc.) in the water.

Clearly electrical items submerged within your aquarium (power heads, heaters, etc.) can provide a direct interface between the prime power source (120 volts alternating (60 Hz) current (VAC) in the United States and 220 VAC, 50 Hz in most of the rest of the world) and the water, but some claim that the stray voltages can be indirectly induced by the lighting systems. This is possible because the skin depth of salt water (a conductor) at 60 Hz is not zero. “Skin depth” is the distance that electromagnetic energy can penetrate a conductor. Salt water is a conductor, but not a perfect conductor, so there is penetration by 60 Hz emissions. These induced voltages are small in magnitude. On the other hand, shorted pumps can develop large currents through the water, but typically between the “short” and some “ground” like your ground probe. This means that the inclusion of a ground probe could make things worse. If a pump were shorting within itself, the currents flowing through the water would remain local to the pump and should not be a problem. You would have to have two shorting pumps, or a pump and a ground probe, or some other current path to get electrical current to flow through your tank.



From the link.