vlangel
Premium Member
If any of you are working in your tanks and get a little zap on occasion, DO NOT IGNORE IT. This happened to me this past 2 weeks. I recently moved my sump from under the cabinet of my tank stand to down in the basement. I am using all the same equipment except I bought a new pump to power my chiller. The new set up is/was working perfectly except that occasionally I would get a small shock when my hands were in the tank. That never happened before I moved the sump. I was stumped as to what was different. Also I was perplexed as to why the GFCIs did not pop. I was tempted to ignore it as insignificant stray current however good thing my husband did not.
My husband and a friend tested the outlets with an outlet tester. Both outlets were good. Then they used a volt meter tester and we began by putting 1 prong in the ground of the outlet and 1 prong in the tank water. It read 110 volts, which was horrifying! So we began unplugging equipment until we got a zero reading from the volt meter. It was the chiller, which was also horrifying because the chiller is new and expensive. However we decided to make sure the chiller was grounded, (as the instruction manual said). We began testing the timer power strip cord and the extension cord and discovered the extension cord had the ground prong broke off. We replaced the extension cord with a new one and what do you know, the volt meter read 0.
The moral of the story, do not ignore even small zaps that only happen occasionally. Investigate until you find the cause. I suppose if I had ever been well grounded for a more direct path for the current to flow through me the GFCI would have protected me from a full blown electrocution but it still could have been serious. Just warning all of you not to make the mistake I almost did.
My husband and a friend tested the outlets with an outlet tester. Both outlets were good. Then they used a volt meter tester and we began by putting 1 prong in the ground of the outlet and 1 prong in the tank water. It read 110 volts, which was horrifying! So we began unplugging equipment until we got a zero reading from the volt meter. It was the chiller, which was also horrifying because the chiller is new and expensive. However we decided to make sure the chiller was grounded, (as the instruction manual said). We began testing the timer power strip cord and the extension cord and discovered the extension cord had the ground prong broke off. We replaced the extension cord with a new one and what do you know, the volt meter read 0.
The moral of the story, do not ignore even small zaps that only happen occasionally. Investigate until you find the cause. I suppose if I had ever been well grounded for a more direct path for the current to flow through me the GFCI would have protected me from a full blown electrocution but it still could have been serious. Just warning all of you not to make the mistake I almost did.
