High Tide Aquatics

40g ADA move and upgrade

Major setback today, I plugged in my Vortec to start mixing in salt to the RO water I filled the tank with, and found out that the new wall outlet my contractor specially installed behind my tank doesn't work at all! We spent two hours testing the wall outlets and he can't come back to fix it until after xmas. On the plus side I will spend xmas with my family with fewer distractions ;) My poor fish have been in the garage holding tank for two months now... with only a protein skimmer for filtration and one water change a month ago.
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Here is a view of my poor reef in the garage, past the new tank, with styrofoam strapped to the holding tank for warmth!


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Take this opportunity to ask ur contractor if he can add a second outlet from another circuit.

I have two, so to support plenty amp draws from and somewhat redundancy in heaters and wavemakers.
 
Julius Chen said:
Take this opportunity to ask ur contractor if he can add a second outlet from another circuit.

I have two, so to support plenty amp draws from and somewhat redundancy in heaters and wavemakers.
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+1 on the multiple circuits. I had two isolated (nothing else on the circuit) installed when I upgraded and moved tanks. One drives the main system including the APEX, the other powers the in-tank circulation system. If a breaker goes, I still have tank circulation. Also, get a commercial GFCI. The cheap ones from Home Depot / Lowes are notoriously unreliable. OK for your hairdryer in the bathroom, risky for the tank.
 
sfsuphysics said:
While I agree on multiple outlets, I would be a bit pissed about giving him any further money if he can't make one outlet work right, I mean crap did he not test it? Did you pop a breaker by chance?
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Mike - good question. Chromis - anything else on that circuit?

One problem created by electricians is daisy chaining outlets off of a ground fault. if the outlet detects a fault and pops, all the outlets downstream go dead, while the circuit breaker in the box is unaffected. It can be frustrating troubleshoot experience.
 
BSAJim said:
+1 on the multiple circuits. I had two isolated (nothing else on the circuit) installed when I upgraded and moved tanks. One drives the main system including the APEX, the other powers the in-tank circulation system. If a breaker goes, I still have tank circulation. Also, get a commercial GFCI. The cheap ones from Home Depot / Lowes are notoriously unreliable. OK for your hairdryer in the bathroom, risky for the tank.
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Our home is all wired with 12 gauge wiring and 20 amp breakers. I've never had a problem with a breaker popping due to too much amperage draw. I've also only had GFCIs pop when they should.
 
When I look for networks there are usually ~10 networks within range (have apartments next door). That's probably causing some wifi interference I'm guessing.
 
Looking good! I think you'll love that Eshopps overflow. I did a 40breeder build here with the same overflow.

I hope the flex tubing works out well for you. I recently re-plumbed my tank during a move to remove the flexible tubing and used hard-PVC for everything. I had to swap my gate valve for a ball valve on the Herbie main drain, but I was still able to dial it in well enough. Hard plumbing looks nice and I have a lot more confidence in it long term, especially with more unions in place to allow maintenance/disassembly.

That being said, halfway through my re-plumbing job I was wondering if I should have used the same flexible tubing you did and keep it simpler.
 
Flagg37 said:
I'm surprised he installed an outlet for a fish tank and didn't install a GFCI outlet.
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Yea... every bathroom outlet is GFCI and he knew this was for an aquarium... so what gives? I'll ask for this on Monday.


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