Three letters that can save your life, your house---GFI

[scuzy]

Quick question.. when I heard the importance of getting a GFCI I got one of these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00UOU6OVU

Is there any reason why this would be a bad idea/less safe than an actual GFCI outlet

Some of these don't auto restart from power out. There are ones that will restart from power outages so make sure you get ones that does. Also get a gfci tripper to test the gfci.
That one you listed say auto restart so looks good.


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[crabbydan]

replaced an outlet over the weekend with a new gfci outlet for my home office 20 gallon build.

 

[Pelagic_e36]

Just yesterday I thoroughly cleaned my HOB skimmer, I checked it often throughout the day, but suddenly after an hour of not checking it, the skimmer was overfilling, spewing saltwater on my "protected" power strip, I could see the sparks and smell the burning. Super lucky I was home and there to stop the imminent disaster.

 

[mcgyvr]

Since I'm already known as the resident idiot plumber, I may as well expose my electrical stupidity as well. Does this mean that if all of my equipment is DC (eg pumps, lights, etc.) that a GFCI isn't doing me much good. The only AC equipment in my tank is the heaters.

Correct... There is little to no harm (no shock hazard) with submerged DC powered equipment as its low voltage. But that AC heater can light you up

If you had a tank of 100% DC powered pumps/heaters and metal halide lighting with a remote ballast there is zero benefit in a GFCI (except if you dropped the AC/DC adapter (brick) into the tank then GFCI would help).. But the second you install submerged equipment that is line powered (AC) you should/must install GFCI..