Timers

[DaveC]

Good Morning,

I was curious what most people use for timers and if there is a place to purchase them online.I have timers right now but they are only two pronged plugs on them, and the ballasts of course have the ground on them, so I placed one of those 2 by 3 adapters inbetween..I was away for the weekend and one of the ballast power cords melted to the 2 by 3 adapter..so I need timers that have grounded outlets in the to plug the ballasts into..the outlet also had some black stuff around it so I believe that I was lucky that a fire did not start,..so does anyone know of where to buy grounded timers...

Thanks
DaveC
Newport,RI

[Katspaw]

If you have a home depot or lowes near to you, you can get the three prong timers in their electrical department. I use ones that are rated for outdoor use, because of the moisture around the tanks is more intense. The generally run about $10.00 up here.

Tracey

[cheletnjared]

I also get mine from Home Depot. They work well, and Tracey is right that they go from $10 an up. I use the $10 ones personally. Also, you may want to just change that outlet out. They are only like $1 or so, better safe than sorry. Black on an outlet is never a good sign. - Jared.

[Chuck S]

Home Depot all the way. I use both the $10.00 ones and have quite a few of the $25.00 digital ones. They are my first choice for lighting.

[King Jason]

Icecap Digital Timer, Solar 1000 L1 Dimmer, and regular timers from Home Depot.

[brody98]

You have a much larger problem than getting a grounded outlet, you need to find out how many amps you are drawing with everything on that electrical circuit, you are very lucky you didn't burn your house down, 14awg wired circuits are only rated @ 15 total amps, 12awg wire is rated @ 20 amps, do not ever use a larger fuse or circuit breaker than the weakest link in the circuit. The black stuff you are talking about is from electrical arcing..this is an extremely bad thing to have happen. If at all possible you should have a electrician look at the circuit to see if you need to have it upgraded or run a separate circuit for your aquarium. If you only have a two prong outlet you will need to run a grounding wire to the outlet before it will do any good to get a three prong (grounded) outlet. If you have any questions please ask and I will help you as much as I can, every thing you would need to do can be done by a "do it yourselfer" if you are a little mechanically inclined, and your local building code permits..

[DaveC]

Thanks for all the replies, I purchased 3 heavy duty timers from the local hardware store, each has a rating of 15amps. I did run one dedicated circuit to my aquarium but did not want to put everything on that one...and by the way that one is still fine...the other is an older one and yes I am going to replace that with another dedicated circuit with 12/2 wire and a 15amp breaker....it also melted the power cord to the ballast I noticed last night which I replaced with a 15amp plug...I was looking online last night for a watt to amp conversion and it looks like a 15amp circuit can take approx 1800 watts total...I don't think I would want to push it to the max but does that sound right to you electricians out there...I figure with 2 15 amp circuits I should be all set because after totaling up everything I believe that I have approx 1500 watts total for lights, pumps and power heads...and yes I do know that I was lucky that something else did not happen like the house burn down..thank god...someone was looking out for me being out of state and everything...I would like an answer back about the watts to amp's conversion that I did and if that sounds correct to everyone...I ran the one dedicated circuit myself, and am fairly handy with just about anything..and there is more space on the main breaker panel, so I thing another circuit is called for...12/2 with a 15amp breaker..
sound good???

Thanks
Dave C

[Katspaw]

An additional circuit will not hurt. Also may I suggest GFI plugs on those lines. It is like having a breaker right there at the fish tank instead of the load going thru the house to the breaker box. NJ code says that they are required anywhere that water is present near by. My tanks are at my business and the fire marshall is in once a year. He was impressed with the wiring set up on my two tanks. But then again safety is very important to me. I wouldn't want anything happening to my business or my home because of a $15.00 or $20.00 item I was to cheap to add. I would have an electrician come in and cheak the wiring on the plug that flashed out. There could be damage to the wire inside the wall. Sounds like you are running Romex wire. With my shop we must run BX ( metal coiled covering ) It is more of a pain to work with, but adds a little more protection. HTH

Tracey

[brody98]

Dave your watts to amps conversion is correct 1500 watts @ 120 volts comes out to 12.5 amps most electric companies set the pole transformers at about 117 volts to keep the light bulb filaments from burning out so fast, at 117v it comes out to just under 13 amps (watts/volts = amps) if your installing a 20 amp receptacle and wiring it with 12awg wire it is a 20 amp circuit, but by protecting it with a 15 amp breaker you will never exceed the receptacle or wire rating. As far as GFCI goes Tracey is correct the 2002 nec code requires a GFCI receptacle within 3ft of a water source, you can do this one of two ways you can install a GFCI receptacle or you can install a GFCI breaker in you panel to protect any future additions to the circuit, the receptacle is cheaper though. One word of caution GFCI's although the safest thing to do, they are touchy with large inrush currents and medium to large motor loads ie: the power coming back on after a power outage, a 1000 watts of lighting kicking in or a 1hp pump turning on after a water change. these types of actions can trip a GFCI, although rare it does happen. imagine being gone for two or three days and coming home to find something tripped the GFCI. I dont want to scare anybody but its something to consider.

[cheletnjared]

I agree that the GFI does trip pretty easily with the loads usually found in a fish tank. I had a plug overload, it did not trip the breaker, and blow out a plug strip that was connected. On further inspection, I found that it was overheating due to improper wiring from the previous owner of our house. Lucky I was home when it happened, and lucky it did not burn my house down. I installed a GFI as the replacement since I also figured it would be good for my tank, and found that it did occasionally trip. Later on, I replaced it with a normal socket found at HD. I have never tripped the circuit at the breaker box, and have experienced no problems since. - Jared.

[Katspaw]

This is very interesting. When I built my 255 tank, I ran didicated lines to the tank. Four of them,:D I placed GFI's on all of the lines. I have Ampmaster 3000 with a couple of the pumps on one line only, then the lighting system on another. Of course, I had to use surge protectors to get added plugs to each plug outlet. I have never had a GFI trip on me with my fish tank. Being that I have 9 pumps, 2 heaters, 4 MH ballast, 3 VHO ballast, Chiller, CO2 soleniod, and 2 canopy fans is tank does pull alot of electricity. Could be that the surge protectors help with the control of electricity and prevent the GFI from tripping unwantedly. I might add that one of the surge protectors has a bettery backup. It is being used with the closed loop pumps and heaters.

Tracey

[brody98]

Tracey It sounds like you spread your current load well, most people don't have 4 dedicated lines(or even 1 for that matter) to their aquarium. The problem comes from one of two things #1 high inrush currents #2 having several motor loads on the same circuit kicking in at the same time, all getting ran through the same GFCI. Heres a example of what happens: you decide you want to set up a tank, first thing you do is look for the outlet close to where you want your tank to be. You set up your equipment and decide to replace the receptacle with a GFI, ok great everything is running and no problems... 2 months go by no problems, then one day you look at you tank and see that the pumps or lights (or worse yet both) are off. You then start to trace down the problem, you go to your breaker panel and look at the breaker its ok then one of a few different things happen: you call an electrician or you trace the problem back to a faulty GFI or you decide to trace the circuit out to find that your aquarium is on the same circuit as the refrigerator or the garage door opener or other high inrush appliance, that happened to kick in at the exact same moment that your 400 watt halides kicked on, like i said before although rare it does happen, I have seen this happen first hand. The moral of the story is know your house / apt wiring before you put in a GFI. Aaron

[Katspaw]

Yes, I know what you mean by that. But having an electrical background /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif I am smart enough to know not to load all of that equipment onto one circuit, and having the ability to run extra electrical lines helped with the cost of it. Since we use a Square D box and have tons of space in the breaker box that controls the office, I didn't run into problems running the extra lines. That was something that I had already checked out. I also ran deciated lines to my 90 and the refrigerator in kitchen at work. I am lucky in the regard that our shop is set up to run 440 outlets although not used. But that will tell you what kind of power we have coming into the shop.

Tracey

[brody98]

Ya, It can make a world of difference if you understand how electrical circuits work, I love my job. I don't have to pay anyone for repair or electrical work, after working on 480 three phase at work 365 days a year 120v stuff seems like child's play, as expensive as reef tanks are to begin with I couldn't imagine adding the cost of an electrician into it to run dedicated circuits. They can run about $75-100 an hour here in the midwest...yikes