GFI tripped. is there any hope?

[unclereefer]

I arrived at my office this morning to check on the tank and found the GFI tripped. The two clowns and blennies look stressed but okay.my lps look okay but my rbta is hanging off the rock not looking so good. It is 66 degrees in the tank and I will be bringing the temp up slowly all day. What temp should I stop at? Is there any hope?

[bunzaroo]

I would think if you bring it up maybe a couple of degrees an hour, with stable parameters they should be ok. Just stop at 78. I think if you do it within a 5-6 hour time frame they should recover. Good luck..

[elegance coral]

Animals tolerate temperature changes from cold to warm, much better than they do from warm to cold. I think you would have a real hard time bring up the temp so fast that it stressed your critters. Unless you have a really small tank. They're stressed now. I would try to end that stress as fast as I could. Within reason. I'd try getting the temp up to 75+ within the next 30 minutes. Then let the system's heater take over to bring it up to ~80. Then I would make sure the system was well grounded, and bypass the GFI. I work with allot of rental properties. You'd be surprised at the number of calls I get because the power's out simply due to a GFI tripping for no apparent reason. IMHO, they are just way to sensitive for use on reef tanks. If you wouldn't have gone to the office today, everything would have probably been dead by Monday. All because of a GFI.

[lordofthereef]

^ :thumbsup:

[unclereefer]

So i'm about to do this.my lfs said do it slowly but it also seems like ec had allot odd experience in the hobby.is the consensus to bring it up quickly? Definitely getting rid of the gfi!

[aleonn]

If they're stressed, I'd want to slowly raise the temp to, say, 72 over the next 12 hrs. Then, depending on their stress level, slowly raise 1 degree per day until you reach your targeted temperature. Raising temperature too fast will affect the amount of oxygen the water carries, as well as salinity and maybe pH IIRC.

[unclereefer]

Double post

[Todd_Sails]

FWIW,

Next time I go out of town, I'm removing my GFCI adapter and using the wall plug direct.
I'd hate to loose my lifestock b/c my GFCI tripped, and I wasn't there to reset it soon.

I have all my power lines and power strips hung in my stand also.

What is the purpose of your GFCI in your office? What is the air temp of the office at night? Isn't the GCFI to prevent fatal shocks while working around your tank, and the occasional catastrophie current leakage into yout DT?

If it wasn't a catatrophic GFCI trip, you may want to consider going without it at night/weekends?

[bennr]

Why are you getting rid of the GFCI??

[elegance coral]

I look at it like this......
If you were in a factory and there was a chemical spill, would you slowly make your way to an exit, then pause at the door to acclimate yourself to the fresh air outside? No. You would be in a very stressful situation. You would run to the nearest exit, bust through the doors, and gasp for all the fresh air you could get. The longer you stay in the factory, the worse your symptoms from the stress will become. Stay in the factory long enough and you're likely to die. Doing things slowly in this hobby is a very good rule of thumb. There are times when it should not apply. We should not sit in front of the tank and watch an animal wither and die, simply because the rule of thumb says everything must be done slowly. We should get that animal into a better environment as soon as possible.

[bennr]

I agree with elegance coral!! they do not need to be acclimated back to the proper temp. and i would not suggest you get rid of the gfci.....mine has never tripped and i run a lot of equipment and pumps on it....it is there for a reason....either GFCI is faulty or equipment it is monitoring is faulty

[BigTankGuy]

So i'm about to do this.my lfs said do it slowly but it also seems like ec had allot odd experience in the hobby.is the consensus to bring it up quickly?

I wouldn't bring it up that quickly. I would target getting it up to about 73 over the next four or five hours. I would then try to get from about 73 to 78 over for the following 12 hours or so. The change is temperature will cause other changes, such as a drop in oxygen content, which the tank has to cope with as well. My experiences with bringing fish up five or eight degrees don't encourage me to try speeding up the process.

Definitely getting rid of the gfi!

Fish are easy to replace. Humans, while fun to make, are much more difficult to replace. Personally, I have tried two approaches. One is to put a small heater and pump on a switch with no GFCI in the loop. When I worked in the tank the switch for the unprotected circuit was turned off. This helped when I had a GFCI feeding other loads that would sometimes cause it to trip. This scared me a little when thinking about someone else jumping in the tank and having virtually no clue about the wiring below. This says little of an experience where a torn seam was streaming salt water through a circuit that cares very little about where the current is going. Ultimately I split the circuit to feed two GFCI protected outlets. This way it is very hard to trip both and crash the tank.

[Saltyjam]

Ultimately I split the circuit to feed two GFCI protected outlets. This way it is very hard to trip both and crash the tank.[/QUOTE]

A good idea but it is against almost all electrical codes to have a more than 1 GFCI on any electrical circuit. Personally, I have a GFCI at the breaker panel which is supposed to be far less susceptible to trip (although this was there before the aquarium was on the circuit). I have an Arc fault interrupter at the wall. IMO, I think it would be unlikely to unknowingly stick your hand in charged water without a grounding probe and ground out. But anyway, between a GFCI and an AFCI, your more likely to be killed by the house fire.

[BigTankGuy]

A good idea but it is against almost all electrical codes to have a more than 1 GFCI on any electrical circuit.

I see you are in Canada. I have heard Canada has a rule about chaining GFCI protection devices. I have not heard of a Canadian rule prohibiting parallel devices on a branch circuit.

In the US the NEC does not prohibit having multiple GFCI outlets on the same circuit. It does not prohibit having multiple GFCI protection devices in series, although chaining GFCI protection devices is generally considered a poor practice since it is difficult to properly test each device. If you know of a specific section of the NEC that prohibits it please give more specific details.

I would be curious to know what the specific rules are in Canada for prohibiting multiple GFCI devices being fed by a common circuit that only has overcurrent protection. It is hard to see how this would be dangerous.

[Zappo]

Why does everyone keep saying to do it so slowly? It's temp, not salinity or PH. When was the last time someone spent 12 hours temperature acclimating a new arrival? Ya float the bag for 5-10 minutes and start adding water... I'd turn that heater back on asap.

[bennr]

I am a licenced electrician in ontario and you are not allowed to put another GFCI in parallel (off load side) with one that is already there.....this will cause nuisanse tripping.....i do not understand why you would anyways??? the next recept in parallel will be protected by the first GFCI as long as it is connected properly from the load side of gfci....you may however put gfci recepts in parallel with each other as long as you come off the line side of the previous gfci....by doing this you are actually only protecting the equipment plugged into each gfci by the actual gfci it is plugged in to and not one further down the circuit. You will see this many times in bathrooms where there is more than one recept that requires GFCI protection but why use more than one right.....same applies to outside recepts as many times there is only actually one GFCI at the front or back and the next one is protected by the first if it is fed off the load side....GFCI monitors everything plugged into it as well as any other recepts fed off the load side. In turn i have also seen many recepts requiring GFCI protection hooked up improperly because it was intended that the next standard recept by protected by the previous GFCI but instead of being connected to the load side it was connected to the line side and therefore will never be monitored by the GFCI and will not trip out if the first GFCI was to do so.....basically you cannot have more than one GFCI monitoring any recept or device or you will experience nuisanse tripping because both gfcis will be trying to monitor current. It will not actually hurt anything by doing this but who wants unneccessary tripping and that is why it is actually not allowed in ontario....lol wow hope this makes sense cuz im not going back to read it

[elegance coral]

Why does everyone keep saying to do it so slowly? It's temp, not salinity or PH. When was the last time someone spent 12 hours temperature acclimating a new arrival? Ya float the bag for 5-10 minutes and start adding water... I'd turn that heater back on asap.

You said that much better than I did.:headwally:

[bennr]

BigTankGuy,

You never actually hook up the gfcis or recepts in series....always parallel....just depends whether you connect next recept in parallel to gfci from the line side or the load side

[BigTankGuy]

BigTankGuy,

You never actually hook up the gfcis or recepts in series....always parallel....just depends whether you connect next recept in parallel to gfci from the line side or the load side

Which is exactly what I said. If you thought I meant to connect them in series, so that the protected circuit feeds another GFCI, that is not what I meant.

Is there a code applicable to Canadian installations that would prevent one unprotected circuit from feeding two independent GFCI devices directly connected to the unprotected side of the circuit? If there is, can you give a reference to the applicable code?

All in all, the point being that there are ways that are not a code violation in the US to make the tank safe and more reliable. So far, I am not even sure that this is not permitted in Canada. I would sure hate to see someone kill themselves because they were scared that it was a choice between burning their house down and losing a few fish.

Now, please explain why you would have nuisance tripping, even if the devices are connected in series. Each GFCI is monitoring for an imbalance of current between the neutral and hot. Why would having multiple devices monitoring for this condition cause the condition to be more easily met?

[tkeracer619]

I never run my return pump on a gfci. Everything else is on them. A couple different ones.

[davocean]

I never run my return pump on a gfci. Everything else is on them. A couple different ones.

I actually do the same thing, I figure my tank can survive a day or two on just that circulation if I was away, and I have a return that has a pretty solid rep(eheim) and highly doubt it becoming an issue ever.

[WayOfTheReef]

fish and corals need flow more than temp. the great barrier reef goes down to about 66 in the winter, so the fact that it was 66 in your tank wasn't the issue as I'm sure it went down slowly. It was the fact that there was no flow in the tank that everything looked like cr@p. I keep my reef tank b/w 73-74, so if your ambient temp in your office is 66, I would keep the temp in your tank low as well, so there is no big swings just incase your tank loses power again ( and it will save you some precious frag buying money ). but again, as long as you restore you flow, everything should be fine. they lose oxygen when there's no water movement, that is more likely why your tank almost crashed.

[unclereefer]

just wanted to give a quick update. I brought temperature back up to 78 degrees slowly. it took about 6 hours and it seems as though the fish responded well. the corals and anemone also seem to be doing really well. I will give an update in the morning thanks for all of your help.

[tkeracer619]

good to hear

A controller with email alerts would be nice since its not in a home with someone around all the time.

[bennr]

Like a PROFILUX!!!:frog: I am home most of the time but still want one so bad!!! Definitely in the new year....maybe GHL will have a surprise cyber monday sale!! lol

[unclereefer]

I have always wanted a reef controller but don't really have the money for one. well, it looks like I dodged a bullet this time. everything looks good and everyone is eating well. One interesting thing is that my tank had recently been infected with ick. I added a little tang that obviously was carrying the parasite. Both of my blennies were scratching all day and I thought I might lose them. I definitely learned my lesson on quarantining. Since the cold event in my tank I haven't seen either Blenny scratch. I am hoping that I won't have an ick problem any more but I realize this probably isn't the case. Thank you everyone for your help!

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