experience or advice for electricity- dedicated circuits?

Electricity...

Does anyone have any warnings/experience with setting up dedicated circuits for aquariums? I'm pulling too much power for a single existing circuit, and cant afford to have all gear go down because of one malfunction. I dont want to hook up the new pumps until I know that it's not going to take down all of my existing gear.

My idea is to have three dedicated circuits:
1 - short term "unnecessary" gear: all the lighting, skimmer pump, UV sterilizer, supplimental circulation pumps, any additional "non critical" gear (ie if i add an ozonizer, calcium reactor, electronic top-off, etc)
2 - redundant line A: one return pump to main tank, one heater, return pump to refugium
3 - redundant line B: one return pump to main tank, one heater, tank ground

My thoughts are that I want 1 non-short term critical circuit so if anything not critical breaks, it doesn't take down critical gear, and 2 separate redundant lines so if one critical piece of gear breaks, it doesn't take down all of critical gear and the tank can limp on until the problem's addressed.

Does this sound appropriate and acheivable? I will use all new GFCIs when installing (I have a feeling one of my current GFCIs isn't up to snuff anymore)

 

Great question - I've actually never had a circuit flip from equipment breaking... the GFCI's flip (which in essence accomplish the same thing... power is cut)

I've had GFCI's flip a few times in the last year... the last time was when a cheap (coralife supplied) pump burnt-out, the time before was from a zooMed rotating powerhead shorting.

I did pop the circuit breaker when I added the metal halides... apparently 1050W of metal halides, 200w of hot5s, a handful of pumps, and 600w of heaters was just too much for one circuit

I dont expect constant failures but I dont want one small equipment failure to turn into a systemic failure!

 

Very dangerous to do this, because the wiring in the walls/through the house are rated for the breaker in the circuit box... can start a fire when the draw increases past the original rating...

 

It's a good point, and it's actually got me thinking about adding just one dedicated (25 amp) circuit but having having 3 separate (but not interdependantly wired) GFCIs on that circuit... that'll definitely simplify this - one max current for all aquarium stuff (that will never be reached) and the individual GFCIs should make sure that failures are not escalated to the circuit breaker to address! My original thoughts on having individual circuits is probably extreme overkill regarding redundancy

 

Oh yeah... I forgot to mention - I've strictly forbidden my wife from plugging anything further in either of the two circuits that the aquarium stuff is currently on (and I put those baby outlet plugs in every free outlet on those circuits as a friendly "reminder")...

 

Ok... I've got new pumps just laying around waiting for me to get off my butt and get power to them now.

I'm leaning towards killing power to the breaker by flipping the master, adding new circuit & wire... cutting new dropping wires through floor (crawlspace side of house with breaker box & aquarium)... turning power back on but leaving new circuit breaker cut off, running wires under floor boards to aquarium (running through tubing normally used to bury wire so there's no chance bugs/small animal can chew the wiring up), and bringing up through floor behind aquarium.

I'll pick electrician books up to make sure i'm using "best practices" when doing all of this...

And yes, my friends are starting to poke and laugh with all the plumbing, and apparently now electrical work I'm doing to the house for the fishies.

 

That would be awesome... our "mud room" (with circuit breaker) is off of the kitchen, and the kitchen opens into the den (with tanks)... might luck out. If not, it should be a quick run under the floor..

I just chatted with a guy @ home depot last night, and he proceeded to try to tell me that metal halides are too dangerous to run on home aquariums because they are a fire hazard, use too much electricity to be efficiently light a tank, and heat the water up too hot requiring a chiller. He insisted that I need to "upgrade" to power compacts like he has on his tank :roll: I was just asking his advice on books/resources to do this wiring project...

When I mentioned I originally had power compacts (just not enough penetrating light), tank never goes over 80F or fluctuates more then 1.5 degree in a day despite no chiller with metal halides, etc... he kept insisting they'll burn my house down ... dude's on crack if he thinks PCs will be enough in a tank this big for acropora, and there's no way i'm buying 16 bulbs (8 rows) of HOT5s yearly !

I had no idea employees were becoming so worthless at that home depot (hull)

 

It was actually pretty strange, when I told him I needed to have a dedicated circuit he pushed to find out why (for my tank)... insisted that my tank wouldn't use enough current to need that (which i told him the lighting)...which he then insisted i shouldn't have those lights. Hopefully at Lowes I can just tell them my power needs, ask if they have good books and the supplies I'll need, and just let me do it.