my tank is shocking me

btwk12

btwk12

Member
everytime i stick my hand in my tank water it shocks me! and sometimes it's a pretty good jolt! but everything in my tank is doing fine. and even when i stick my finger in there and it shocks me they still have no reaction at all. what could be causing this and why is it shocking me and they are completley fine?
 
fish are good

fish are good

Member
i am no expert but i think its called stray voltage i think i have heard of some people using some kind of a "ground" otherwise check your heaters and pumps. sry i am not a ton of help but i have heard of it happening before. :) good luck!
 
meowzer

meowzer

Moderator
YIKES....sounds like you have an equipment issue....I know nothing about electronics, BUT you need to find out the cause....I bet eventually the livestock will be affected
 
2quills

2quills

Well-Known Member
You have a bad piece of equipment somewhere. Unplug everything one at a time and find out what it is and get rid of it. When you put your hand in the tank you are probably creating a path to ground and the current gets passed through you. Otherwise your fish probably don't feel a thing until that happens. But it's still dangerous so you need to figure it out and get it taken care of.
 
btldreef

btldreef

Moderator
Definitely a bad piece of equipment and you need to rectify it immediately. I had a return pump get chewed on every so slightly by a crab and it was shocking the entire tank.
 
btwk12

btwk12

Member
well its not doing it now, so there is no way to tell which one is bad. i have got shocked before when my arm was wet, and i stuck it in the tank, and touched the light fixture at the same time. if im off tommorow i am going to inspect all my wiring, and thats a lot of work.
 
btldreef

btldreef

Moderator
That's how my tank was for a while. My husband thought I was crazy, then when the return pump go worse, it became constant and he got shocked as well.
 
btwk12

btwk12

Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by BTLDreef http:///forum/thread/386047/my-tank-is-shocking-me#post_3388645
That's how my tank was for a while. My husband thought I was crazy, then when the return pump go worse, it became constant and he got shocked as well.
so did it kill anything or did you catch it before it did because i am filling my tank with sps pretty fast and i would be devastated if i would to lose all of it!!!
 
bang guy

bang guy

Moderator
$&%^@#!!!!! Have you no GFI? Are you suicidal?
I agree with the procedure of plugging in each piece one at a time to see which one causes the voltage but you NEED a GFI circuit and should have a grounding probe.
In my experience it's either a heater that's blown a seal or a Rio pump.
 
btldreef

btldreef

Moderator
GFI's don't always catch it. We have them, still got me.
It actually did kill some of my SPS, at least that's what I think happened with them. They were the only pieces we lost and didn't loose anything else after the situation was rectified.
Good luck!
 
flower

flower

Well-Known Member
Please be safe and use a tester for the stray voltage, not your hand. Absolutly use GFCI outlets and don't rest until you figure out what's causing it. I lost all my inverts and $1500.00 worth of coral because of a broken heater that shocked my tank...it's been over a year and the tank is still not up to snuff. Oddly I didn't lose a single fish.
 
2quills

2quills

Well-Known Member
Yes, gfci are the way to go for safety reasons. And a gfci with the use of a grounding probe would have alerted you to the problem before you got zapped. Gfci's without a grounding probe won't always catch the problem if current isn't actually passing through the tank. Then when you go to put your hand in there you often become the path to ground for the current to travel and you get zapped and then the gfci trips quickly after. Or if you touch something metal like you did on the light fixture at the same time you stick your hand in the tank.
Did you figure out what it was yet?
 
btwk12

btwk12

Member
i checked everything out and i found nothing my uncle is coming over tommorow (electrician)and were going to figure something out and ill have him change the outlets to gfci outlets.
 
yannifish

yannifish

Active Member
Good luck to you. Had this happen with a return pump once, the GFCI didn't catch it. I'm not saying not to use GFCIs though. Do use them.
 
S

shrimpy brains

Guest
Quote:
Originally Posted by btwk12 http:///forum/thread/386047/my-tank-is-shocking-me#post_3388624
well its not doing it now, so there is no way to tell which one is bad. i have got shocked before when my arm was wet, and i stuck it in the tank, and touched the light fixture at the same time. if im off tommorow i am going to inspect all my wiring, and thats a lot of work.
This is because when you touched the light, you created a ground. The stray voltage is still there, but if you have shoes on and are not touching another object, the circuit is not completed.
I recommend you buy a volt meter (they are inexpensive) and test your tank. Then unplug things one at a time and keep testing till you find the culprit. Good luck and be careful.
 
flower

flower

Well-Known Member
I would shut all the equipment off and remove it.....get a tub and fill it with water and test one piece of equipment at a time (the most needed piece first) in the tub with a tester. If it is safe then return it to the tank. No way would I leave any possible damaged equipment in there, it wouldn't be in my tank until I was sure it's safe. JMO
 
troy670

troy670

New Member
i had same problen for about two years never found problem every thing was ok thou must b in pump chiller ect cords some where (sorry not much help )buy must b open electric some where
 
raptor72

raptor72

Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flower http:///forum/thread/386047/my-tank-is-shocking-me#post_3389157
Please be safe and use a tester for the stray voltage, not your hand. Absolutly use GFCI outlets and don't rest until you figure out what's causing it. I lost all my inverts and $1500.00 worth of coral because of a broken heater that shocked my tank...it's been over a year and the tank is still not up to snuff. Oddly I didn't lose a single fish.
If I wanted to check mine with a multi tester, what setting would I put it on?
 
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