Hey guys, I'm not sure if this is the right place for this, but couldn't think of a better place. I have a question about electric currents in my aquarium. I recently stuck my hand in during a water change a noticed a tingling/burning sensation in a cut I had on my hand, and immediately recognized it as an electric current. So I borrowed a friends voltmeter, and discovered that the current in the tank ranges from about -200 Mv to about 250Mv. I tried to isolate what was causing this, and found out that my 250 watt stealth heater was causing a big chunk of it, but even with that unplugged I was still getting a range of about -100 to about 125. My question is, is this a problem, and if so what can I do about it? I have to imagine that some current will get into the water, but I figure if i can feel it in a cut the fish aren't appreciating it. Thanks guys.
Electric current in tank, need help
- Thread starter smitty
- Start date
smitty;1512192; said:
I dont know to much about electric stuff, but I would try to unplug everything one at a time. This way you could see which is doing it.
I would start with the easiest first, like the lights, filter,powerheads etc...
and check it with the Voltmeter after each one. Better safe (and long) than sorry
i would say its a big problem....potentially dangerous to you.
unplug every thing.........try one plug at a time........there should be no measurable current from the tank water to ground.
are all the power cords in good shape ??
are any of them in wet or damp locations??
if not it would appear a piece of gear has some type of short in it...not enough to blow the breaker.
are the plugs GFI ???
unplug every thing.........try one plug at a time........there should be no measurable current from the tank water to ground.
are all the power cords in good shape ??
are any of them in wet or damp locations??
if not it would appear a piece of gear has some type of short in it...not enough to blow the breaker.
are the plugs GFI ???
Ok your measuring electrical voltage not current. Just to note the difference. Stray electrical fields are everywhere too.
What kind of meter are you using?
Measure from the ground of the electrical outlet to the neutral, should be ~0.
If you get a reading here, this problem will have to be corrected before moving on.
Measure from a known good electrical ground (sometimes hard to find), using the current setting, to the water in the tank, again this should be 0 also.
Stray currents can be drained off with a ground probe, but only if they are stray currents.
Dr Joe
.
What kind of meter are you using?
Measure from the ground of the electrical outlet to the neutral, should be ~0.
If you get a reading here, this problem will have to be corrected before moving on.
Measure from a known good electrical ground (sometimes hard to find), using the current setting, to the water in the tank, again this should be 0 also.
Stray currents can be drained off with a ground probe, but only if they are stray currents.
Dr Joe
.
I stumbled upon precisley the same problem in precisley the same manner as you did. Strangely, I found that the source of the discharge was my fluorescent lighting strip. I raised it off the top of the tank on a couple of pieces of wood and....voila! Interestingly, there was no indication that it was bothering the fish. Also, the discharge seemed to be confined to only the first inch or so of water. If I reached further into the tank, the sensation disappeared. You will have to systematically isolate and identify the source of the current leakage, as the others have suggested.
Does anybody know why this doesn't bother the fish? My buddy had one of those underwater lights, and one day while working on his tank, we got the crap shocked out of us each time we put our hands in the tank, but the fish seemed perfectly normal.
Is this bad for this fish? BTW, the underwater lights were scrapped for a regular light fixture!
Is this bad for this fish? BTW, the underwater lights were scrapped for a regular light fixture!
thanks guys, I'm not an electrical wizard, so I.m not offended Dr. Joe. I already did the isolation thing, and it changed the voltage, but didn't eliminate it. i noticed a little dampness in the cabinet after i cleaned my canister, but i cleaned it promptly, unplugged everything and then put the power strip back together on a dry part of the floor. All of the cables appear fine, but some of the equipment is used, and i don't know how old it is, etc, but I'm still gonna go over the cables again just to be sure. I'll have to check out the plug, It's in the basement right next to the breakers, so if thats the problem then i think this could potentially suck a lot. I unplugged the lights and it sadly didn't help at all. Tanks actually at a good friend of mines house, moved back into my fams house last year, no basement, and i didn't wanna take the chance that whoever I rent form in the near future won't accept tanks, so it's a nice stable place since he owns. The problem I thought of when this first started is that he's never upgraded his electrical system(house is from the 70's) and i can't remember the last time he had anything looked at. If it matters, I was messing around with the settings on the meter and found that i was getting .003 volts AC. going to go mess around with it now, I'll see if i can figure this out.
jcardona1;1513898; said:
The fish dont feel anything because although there is a voltage present in the tank, it has no path to ground, so no current is flowing. They are like birds sitting on a power wire, they may be at 4,000 volt potential, but no path for the current to flow to ground.
When you come along and put your hand in the water, YOU become a path for the current to flow to ground. What you are feeling is actually a current flowing through your body, induced by the stray voltage thats present in the tank.
This is of course a bad thing, because the insulation has broken down in something, and could potentially leak enough voltage into the tank to cause a dangerous amount of current to flow, though YOU.
Like Dr Joe said, check your wall outlet and it's potential to earth, I have seen weird wiring faults do VERY strange things and apply all sorts of voltages to things that shouldn't have them.
Cheers
Ian
P.S. our domestic voltage here is 230v, not 115, so we have to be even more carefull with that sort of thing.
Alright, so i was going about this the whole wrong way. i was using the voltmeter with both probes in the tank. New method, checking the v with the little tilde thing above it, which brings up the AC light on the voltmeter, with one probe in the tank, and one on the grounded water main, which is luckily right next to the tank. It's showing 35 V~. which i have to imagine is very not good. I will update when I've gone through the isolation process using the correct way of doing this... and yes, I am an electricity newbie. thanks for bearing with me on this.
Alright, i checked everything the right way, and now it seems that the power strip and the socket are the culprits. The heater I was concerned about is dumping about 25% of the voltage into the tank, so I'll probably replace that just to be safe, but everything in the tank is contributing to the voltage. I find it hard to believe everything AI have on the tank is not insulated properly. The water main isn't near the socket, so I'm gonna have to wait until my buddy finds his little circuit tester dealy to figure out if that's grounded properly, but I'm trying to find a replacement surge protector to see if that fixes the problem.