Grounding Probe

If you have any device leaking elektricity to the water, and you are
affraid of negative effects on your tank inhabitants, the grounding
probe will make things even worse. It will INCREASE the current
flowing from the failed device to the ground through the water column.
Without the probe, the resistance of glass, wood is high enought
to make the current flow almost zero. The probe will lower this
resistance to zero and current will be limited only with the weak
resistance of broken insulation of the device.

If you narrowed the problem to the light fixture I would look to this
really closer. Does it have metal reflector? Is it correctly grounded?
Lights usualy radiate some electricity to water, but if the fixture
is designed correctly it is negligible.

Do one test: disconnect the probe from ground and put a multimeter
in series with it on a AC current settings. If you measure less then 1mA
I would not worry about. If it is more than that I would fix your lights.
Let me give you an example - the original fluorescent fixture from
CustomSeaLights causes readings on a level about 0.2mA. DIY
fixture I made with my friend gives reading 0.8mA when one lamp is
on and 1.6mA when both lamps are on. This is a reason for us to
redesign reflector and replace glass mirror with grounded polished
aluminium.

In your case I would fix the light fixture and I would get rid of the probe
for sure.

In a matter of your GFCI plug - what is it rated for? 5-6mA?
Or maybe bigger? 1mA current is detectable by human skin. 5mA is
already very painful. GFCI plug will not react to very small currents.

wrote in message ...
Just wondering here...I put a ground probe in one of my tanks and
hooked it up to a GFCI outlet. I was feeling some shocks when I
touched the water. I narrowed the problem down to the lighting.
Anyway, the GFCI never tripped. I thought aside from supposedly
ridding the tank of stray voltage, that it would also trip the GFCI
when the water is touched. I guess not? What's the deal?

wrote:
Just wondering here...I put a ground probe in one of my tanks and
hooked it up to a GFCI outlet. I was feeling some shocks when I
touched the water. I narrowed the problem down to the lighting.
Anyway, the GFCI never tripped. I thought aside from supposedly
ridding the tank of stray voltage, that it would also trip the GFCI
when the water is touched. I guess not? What's the deal?

The GFCI will only protect you against leaking devices that are plugged
into the GFCI. It does not really matter if ground probe is plugged
into the GFCI or not, because the GFCI compares the current in the hot
and neutral wires to detect a fault rather than monitoring the ground
wire. The ground probe merely provides a means for a bad device to leak
to ground and trip the GFCI before you stick your hand in. I would
suggest that you make sure that ALL devices are plugged into the GFCI,
otherwise you are not fully covered. If it still does not trip I would
check to make sure the GFCI is wired correctly.

Well, I thought the outlet was a GFCI since it was in my kitchen not too far
from an actual GFCI outlet. I just tested that one and it did not shut off
the outlet at the tank. Guess I'll be changing that outlet today...although
I think I have a portable GFCI I can attach for now. It's only a temporary
setup for an injured fish. It's a 25 gallon tank with an Eclipse hood and
it's that light that was causing the little shocks. Probably because some
water got inside it. It's a big puffer in there and he splashes allot. So,
anyway I'll just keep the light unplugged for now. I'm sure it's fine and
just needs to dry out.

You're answer though does lead me to another question with my big tank. I
have that on a GFCI outlet (for sure) with 2 power strips plugged into that.
The ground probe is plugged into one of the power strips. Will the probe
still trip the GFCI before I stick my hand in or must it be plugged directly
into the outlet, not the power strip.

Thanks!


"Brian C. Attwood" wrote in message
...
wrote:
Just wondering here...I put a ground probe in one of my tanks and
hooked it up to a GFCI outlet. I was feeling some shocks when I
touched the water. I narrowed the problem down to the lighting.
Anyway, the GFCI never tripped. I thought aside from supposedly
ridding the tank of stray voltage, that it would also trip the GFCI
when the water is touched. I guess not? What's the deal?

The GFCI will only protect you against leaking devices that are plugged
into the GFCI. It does not really matter if ground probe is plugged
into the GFCI or not, because the GFCI compares the current in the hot
and neutral wires to detect a fault rather than monitoring the ground
wire. The ground probe merely provides a means for a bad device to leak
to ground and trip the GFCI before you stick your hand in. I would
suggest that you make sure that ALL devices are plugged into the GFCI,
otherwise you are not fully covered. If it still does not trip I would
check to make sure the GFCI is wired correctly.

In article , Pszemol wrote:

In your case I would fix the light fixture and I would get rid of the probe
for sure.

Do not get rid of the ground probe. It could save your life. All
sal****er tanks should have a ground probe.

"SG" wrote in message ...
In article , Pszemol wrote:

In your case I would fix the light fixture and
I would get rid of the probe for sure.

Do not get rid of the ground probe. It could save your life.
All sal****er tanks should have a ground probe.

GFCI saves life... Grounding probe is designed just to keep
your fish from getting sick from stray voltages - but I guess
it is only a marketing thing rather than a real deal... because
the real thing is that grounding probe is making things worse
for your fish. It creates stray currents which are far worse
than stray voltages for a living things. But this is only IMHO.
I would be happy to hear from you about grounding probe saving
lives... please explain how does it do it?

GFCI saves life... Grounding probe is designed just to keep
your fish from getting sick from stray voltages - but I guess
it is only a marketing thing rather than a real deal... because
the real thing is that grounding probe is making things worse
for your fish. It creates stray currents which are far worse
than stray voltages for a living things. But this is only IMHO.
I would be happy to hear from you about grounding probe saving
lives... please explain how does it do it?

it saves the lives of my blue spot stingray

i went through a un commented number of them after I got my first, the tank is outside,
and they would not do well, I bought that tank used, with the ray, it took only a few days
to kill it, and the next ...... there was very very little stray voltage leaking from
something but it was bothering him, now the probe, and cooler temps and ive been keeping
the same one for a while ill have to dig out dates but I think its over a year now.

I would suspect that a grounding probe **WITH** a GFCI would do a good job at sending that
stray current away from the guy with his hand in his tank, between the time that the shock
occurs and the GFCI trips, but read into that third word suspect in this statement as I
have no proof either way. just seems the probe is a much less resistant path then a guy
with his arm in a tank

--
richard reynolds

it saves the lives of my blue spot stingray

i went through a un commented number of them after I got my first, the
tank is outside,
and they would not do well, I bought that tank used, with the ray, it took
only a few days
to kill it, and the next ...... there was very very little stray voltage
leaking from
something but it was bothering him, now the probe, and cooler temps and
ive been keeping
the same one for a while ill have to dig out dates but I think its over a
year now.

So you are saying, that grounding water column and leading much stronger
electric current out of this failured device to ground, through the water
and
the stingray was better than leaving voltage not grounded? It does not make
sense - try to imagine birds sitting on a 20kV wire hanging between
hig-voltage
poles. Do they feel stray voltage around them in the air? On their legs?
NOT!
They would certainly feel it when somebody would aproach them with a
something
like a "grounding probe". Their would become a nice, birdy fireworks :-)
The same works with water, stray voltage in the water, and leading these
voltages
to ground with a grounding probe. Basicaly, the interest of normally
grounded
human (shoes?) putting his hand into the water and acting as a poor
grounding
probe conflicts with the interest of fish inside the tank. Fish do not want
any
grounding probe in their tank, like birds sitting on 20kV wire do not want
any
grounding probes near them.

I would suspect that a grounding probe **WITH** a GFCI would do a good job
at sending that
stray current away from the guy with his hand in his tank, between the
time that the shock
occurs and the GFCI trips, but read into that third word suspect in this
statement as I
have no proof either way. just seems the probe is a much less resistant
path then a guy
with his arm in a tank

As I said - there are two different aspects of this issue and both need to
be
discussed separatelly. In my opinion, I am sufficiently protected against
being electocuted by the GFCI plug and I do not need additional grounding
probe. In this case I would not install one to not put miliamps not tripping
GFCI
going through the bodies of my fish inside the tank. Yes, I will risk being
stung
by the small voltage not tripping GFCI normally, showing itself as a stray
voltage,
but I would take this risk just to not make any currents flow in the water
column.

Bottom line: GFCI - big YES, Grounding Probe - big NO!