New to the hobby with electrical questions

[savex389]

Hey all!

I'm a newbie saltwater starter and I've been stalking this site for a while getting answers to all my questions. I've done freshwater for most of my life, it got boring and now my hubby and I want to start in on salt. So we sold our 55 G tank and all other freshwater stuff and we are now trying to update to a 150 G (because bigger is better!).
My husband is very handy and has built the stand for the tank already and now wants to work on the electrical. We want/hope to put the tank on its own breaker so nothing will trip it so that's not the problem.
My question is how many GFCI outlets should he expect to install?
Right now we're thinking 3 two socket outlets for the stand part (to run the sump, protein skimmer, ect.) and 2 two socket outlets for the top to run the lights. Is this over kill? Not enough? any opinions? We need to have this decided by the weekend so we can start all the wiring.

 

[blenny]

Welcome

They do sell power strips that are GFI, I t will give you more options but i would deadicate one socket for the lights, also add up the voltage your going to be drawing from that outlet to see if the breaker can handle it you dont want to start a fire. ( make sure you have a Drip Loop on all cords )

 

[robertmathern]

It sounds about right. I would recomend the 2 plug gfi for the wall much safer then the gfi power strips but the strips do work well its what I use. Running on its own circuit is also a good idea. I think you are on the right track. you might not use all of the outlets but better than not enough power strips wilalways work but I have fried quite a few of them over the years.

 

[savex389]

We want to go with wall ones for that reason alone, robertmathern, safety. If needs be we'll use the powerstrips too, but since we have the option of hard wiring why not ya know?
My brother in law is going to come over and help with the breaker and see if we'll need to up our 20 power to a 30 on the breaker.
Thank you for the feed back!

 

[acrylic51]

The 20amp is perfectly fine. For your typical aquarium equipment....The only thing that might require a bigger circuit would be a 220 chiller, but don't think you'd want something that big in the house for a 150 gallon tank. The only thing I would honestly suggest is that when you run your electrical lines or circuits for the new tank instead of tying everything on 1 20amp circuit is to install 2 separate 20 amp circuits. By installing 2 20amp circuits you can break your load between the 2. That way if something would trip you don't loose everything. An example would be to put your main pump on circuit 1 and lets say 1 MH ballast and on the 2nd circuit put your PH's and the other MH on this one. That way if 1 circuit would trip you would still have either your main pump running or your PH's circulating the tank. HTH

 

[flower]

I’m not a handy person and I don’t know anything electrical. However I had a friend put GFI outlets on their own breaker just as you say you want to do. To run my 90g I had the following set up for enough electric…You might want to add one more set of outlets for a 150g.
I have 4 quad GFI outlets. Two on each side of the tank, two up near the top and the other two near the bottom about a foot from the floor. Making 16 available outlets.
What is plugged in to run my 90g:
•Auto top off unit
•4 Koralia power heads
•Skimmer
•2 Canister filters
•2 fans
•1 utility pump for ATO
•2 Xs MH light ballasts
•Actinic lights
•Moonlight strip
•Heater
Then I got a Master control unit to control my lights, freeing up 4 outlets. I am thinking of a chiller in the distant future. Also the “extra” outlets are now used for when I do a water change, I can hook up a pump and heater in my 37g tub to mix my saltwater 24 hours before I add it to the tank.

 

[acrylic51]

I think the biggest key to decided before doing any work would be to have an idea of what equipment you'll have or add and then decided how many outlets you'll need. Keep in mind again, it does no good to have 100 outlets all on the same circuit. The important thing is to distribute your load amongst your outlets and not to run more than 80% load capacity on those breakers. That is why I suggest adding piggyback breakers to the box; saving yourself room in the box as well.

 

[jchase1970]

I don't like having my main pump on the gfi cause I am gone 10-12 hrs a day and hate to risk the gfi tripping. But, If I was going to have everything on gfi I would install separate gfi receptacles, not 1 gfi that protects everything. This way if one gfi trips the others will stay on, only the faulted item will trip. If you are not sure how to install multiple gfis on one circuit pm me, I'm a master electrician and I can help.
How many you need will vary, I have 4 below my tank and 3 above my tank in the canopy, I have empty spaces but you never know what you are going to add. I have 2 heaters in case one goes bad, skimmer, uv, main pump, fuge light, 2 t5 lights 1 t8 accent light, 1 powerhead, hopping to come across another powerhead.
Figure out everything you think you need and add a couple of extra cause you will add something later, not might add but will add.

 

[savex389]

Thank you for all the relipes. I think we decided on 4 two outlet sockets on the bottom, so totaling 8 outlets, and 2 two outlet for the top. If needed we'll plug in power strips.
I didn't think about putting the tank on two seperate breakers and if we have room in our breaker box (which I think we do) we'll do that.

 

[acrylic51]

I agree with Jchase about main pump on GFCI. Honestly with all my setups I've never used them, but I don't have my outlets under the tank, which might convince me to do if I did.