So I am setting up a ~500g tank in my family room. I suspect there will be a somewhat heavy electrical load to the nearby plugs. Is there an easy way to check that I have enough power to run my future setup? I am planning to give an electrician a call in the coming months as the project develops but I wanted to see if there was somethign I could do easily right now.
Electrical Question
- Thread starter nzafi
- Start date
First step is to estimate what your load will be. If you put two 500W heaters on the tank, it will definitely be the biggest pull. Will you use sump or canister filters. Estimate the load on those. If you use LED lighting, the load will be minimal. Will you have a power head or two? Total up all of your watts before you call your electrician to let him know what kind of load you are expecting to add. Since the receptacle outlets themselves are typically only 15 amps rated, you will not want to put more than 80% of the 15A on there. That means try not to have more than 1440 watts (80% of 15 x 120V = 1440W) of load on any one outlet. Next you will need to know what other loads are plugged into the same circuit. Go around the room and find out what is plugged into those outlets. Total it all up. When you have the total, contact the electrician and explain what you're trying to do. All in all, if you have a spare breaker, it would always be best to have the tank and load on it's own breaker so that vacuums and other loads plugged in nearby don't cause problems with your tank, but that's an expense you will have to consider and the electrician can help you with that.
Thanks for the input. I suspect I will be running about 900-1000w in heaters and I am looking at pumps that draw up to another 350w for running filtration. I suspect I am going to hit upwards of 1500w for running the tank at times.
The prior owner actually did a really good job of marking everything it looks like only thing for those outlets is lighting in the room and then some lighting for the kitchen, so minimal. I will saw the break box looks fully loaded though and i suspect it is an expanded one. We just moved into the house in August. The prior owner has a jacuzzi installed outside which we will not be using, and I have my own personal sauna in our finished basement. If the load is too heavy for the family room circuit, I might be able to use the line allocated to the jacuzzi. Not sure if that is doable and/or expensive to do.
The prior owner actually did a really good job of marking everything it looks like only thing for those outlets is lighting in the room and then some lighting for the kitchen, so minimal. I will saw the break box looks fully loaded though and i suspect it is an expanded one. We just moved into the house in August. The prior owner has a jacuzzi installed outside which we will not be using, and I have my own personal sauna in our finished basement. If the load is too heavy for the family room circuit, I might be able to use the line allocated to the jacuzzi. Not sure if that is doable and/or expensive to do.
From your loads, it is apparent that you will need an electrician to set you up with a dedicated 20A rated circuit (and receptacle) for use with your tank. You may have found a cheapest way to go by re-purposing the circuits for the unused jacuzzi.
Do you know how much a typical circuit can handle? I have more than one receptacle next to the tank that I can use. Does this mean I can put more load on a circuit than 1440 watts? Looks like I have more than one circuit going to my family room but I’ll need to figure out which walls they are. If I’m lucky I’ll actually have two circuits near the tank.
Power (Wattage) = Current x Voltage (P=I*V)
I wouldn't use more then 80% of the breakers capacity for this calculation as pumps/heaters are always on (continuous load).
10a breaker *120v supply = 1200*.8= 960 max watts
15a breaker * 120v supply =1800*.8= 1440 max watts
20a breaker * 240v supply = 4800*.8= 3840 max watts
Also, just because an outlet is present, if you're also using the same circuit/breaker to power the TV and xbox, you wont have the full capacity available nor are outlets generally designed to handle that much wattage long term.
I wouldn't use more then 80% of the breakers capacity for this calculation as pumps/heaters are always on (continuous load).
10a breaker *120v supply = 1200*.8= 960 max watts
15a breaker * 120v supply =1800*.8= 1440 max watts
20a breaker * 240v supply = 4800*.8= 3840 max watts
Also, just because an outlet is present, if you're also using the same circuit/breaker to power the TV and xbox, you wont have the full capacity available nor are outlets generally designed to handle that much wattage long term.
