"richard reynolds" wrote in message .. .
My goal is not to force you to change your mind.
My goal was to express my opinion on this subject.
It is up to each of us to make the best decision
in order to care for animals we take our responsibility for.

I know !

Good :-)

there is some evidence but as i hinted to the study basically
says we need to study it which isnt enough.

Exactly :-)

being a preditor tank the ONLY circulation is from the sump
to tank (and back duh )
the sump is a 20long
the tank is a 75 and completely covered in diatom algae

the only thing in the tank is the ray, a porcupine puffer,
a 4" very fine sand bed (forget dsb the ray tosses it over
and over) and a ground probe (not the only one, not always in there)

Is it glass tank?

as its outside and as outside is easy to get to dirt to ground it instead of using the
ground wire from the main i ran a seperate wire 10gague solid copper to a 10' grounding
rod burried about 9' deep its all of 4' from the sump to the rod the box from the main has
a circuit breaker plus one of them hard cutoff switches the breaker is a gfci breaker,
this is attached to both ground probes and the canister heater one ground probe is in the
sump the other is in the tank. the heaters grounded but I THINK that its only the outside
thats really grounded not the part that touches the water when its working, ive tested
this a few times and to the best i could come up with this is the case.

I have 2 skimmers both americal typhoon's ran with rio 3500's with the rio rtv adapter
YES IVE CHECKED THEM THERE NOT THE CAUSE figured id get that straight out because w/o it
ppl are gona jump on these poor rios

the return pump which ive checked out over and over is a slightly older little giant 3-md
something

there is a canister heater which probibly hasnt even flickerd sence april and a fan on a
thermostat its ran on sence april

The only way to eliminate this heater from the picture is completely
remove it from the AC outlet. Assumtion it does not flicker because
water is hotter than the thermostate setup is probably true, but it
does not say if we have current leak from it to water or not...
It could leak even if the thermostate does not turn it on. It could be
one pole switch, so one pole can be constantly on.

i get the same very very small stray voltage going through the probe

What do you mean "voltage going through the probe"?
I have already explained here a mistake people do measuring the voltage.
You can prove me wrong by using very different voltmetter and measuring
the voltage again. Tell me please what you have read from both readings.

ill have to dig up details ive posted them before and while ive
done it a few times, id like to not mess up the details. ive used
analog and digital meters in several AC and DC modes, all good meters.

I would be very surprised if you measured the same stray voltages
with different types of meters :-) Their readins will mostly depend
on their internal resistance compared to the resistance of the devices
insulation.

for all I can tell there is NOTHING in the tank adding to
any current besides the tank/water/fish

Tell me more how did you find out about this.

trial and error and a few dead rays
I should point out the "for all I can tell" part
one more time.

Right... and since I am not a ray expert I have no idea what was
stressing your fish. In terms of electicity in other hand, I know
what I am saying... :-)

I am glad you are happy. But you can help others adding more details
about your setup. Please do.

ill be glad to do any tests you can think of in
the interest in providing a better place ,
but I'd like to not re do them all,

No, if everything is working - do not change anything... :-)
I would be only interested in two things:
- what is the influence of you heater being off to the stray voltages
- what is the reading of stray voltages from a set of different meters :-)

I am not an electronics expert, but ive been around the block many times. all the major
electrical work like the grounding rod and the run from the mains was done by a licensed
electrcian as rqd by local code I even went as far as having it all inspected by a
different guy just to make sure it wasnt something fsked up with the first guys wiring

Good. I have no doubt your grounding is good.

BTW - do you have pictures of your outside tank setup?
I am interested in seeing it if you have them available.