Help me not burn down my home.

[Gordonious]

Ok so here is the deal I live in an small two bedroom apartment with my girlfriend and I've find myself worried a bit about my electrical usage on what I found to be a single line. Half of our bedroom, the whole fish room, a bathroom, and a walk in closet are all on the same line.
Hooked up to these sockets are a large computer, two qt tanks, and about five reef tanks ranging in size from 20 to 40g. The specifics as far as pumps and lighting I will post later. I didn't want to make this thread too long to read from the start. Basically way to much, but I am not sure what I can do about it.

I took a picture of the box in my apartment. I honestly don't know what it all means, but I need to figure it all out.

Jon

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[cdangel0]

Jon,

Rest assured you will not burn down your house. Now Steph being able to use a hair dryer and not shut down all your reef equipment is another story.

A 15 amp circuit is not going to allow many high-draw items to run at one time, and will probably trip pretty frequently, especially when your heaters all kick on at the same time.

Unfortunately, being in an apartment I am not sure there is too much you can do. The best solution is to have an electrician run an additional line or two to your fish stuff, but being in an apartment doesn't make that very likely, unless your landlord has a thing for fish tanks.

You may want to set up a small nano in the office for them, let them enjoy it for a couple weeks, then ask permission :rollface:

 

[Jocephus]

How about an extension cord to the neighbor's house? :lol:

 

[Gordonious]

Well my landlord turns out to be a large cooperation that owns apartment complexes across the country, so it's a little rough getting them to sympathize with me.

It sounds as if what your saying is that things will be fine as long as the switch isn't tripping and if it is then I should know I have pushed it too far? I know that I also wouldn't want to do it all off one extension cord or surge strip and I try to be smart about what I plug into what.

I just worried a bit when I hooked up my new metal halide fixture and started considering running a second pump on my reef tank/prop system.

Jon

 

[mbbuna]

if your going to use extension cords spend the extra cash for good ones like this http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs...langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100341452 HD has them in stock, there 15amp and i think have a 15' cord

 

[Gordonious]

Trickery thing is since it seems half of the apartment is on one of those 15 amp switches, I'd have to run the extension cord either from a socket next to a bathroom sink past two high traffic areas or under a bed and past three high traffic areas.(trip hazard either way) Or I might be able to drill a slightly larger hole next to the small hole the cable installer put in the wall....

Jon