Engloid
Valuable Member
I don't know if it was a recent move of my light fixture, to another power strip, or when it happened...but....
I put my hand in my frag tank and my arm hit my light fixture. I felt a shock, about like licking a 9v battery. It seems that puttin your hand in the water and touching a clean (no powdercoat or paint) spot helps you "notice" a voltage problem pretty well. The screws that have been removed a couple times will usually have bare spots that get me.
I had noticed that it seems that my frags had kinda stalled out lately, with very slow growth. Maybe this was the problem.
Anyway, I put a meter probe to a known ground, and then one in the water and was getting as high as 43 volts!!! I unplugged everything one at a time and as it turns out, the light was the problem... because it wasn't grounded well. I'm not electromaticer, but this can't be a good thing when you get shocked like this. My house is old, so most outlets only have 2 prongs. I may be working up a grounding strip near my frag and sump setup so I can run grounds from every powerstrip.
Perhaps it wasn't a problem unless I did something that connected the light fixture to the water. In other words...I don't know that any electricity was running through the water WITHOUT my completing the circuit. If anybody is better at electrical stuff than I am, and can help me with more info, I'm definitely open to it.
I put my hand in my frag tank and my arm hit my light fixture. I felt a shock, about like licking a 9v battery. It seems that puttin your hand in the water and touching a clean (no powdercoat or paint) spot helps you "notice" a voltage problem pretty well. The screws that have been removed a couple times will usually have bare spots that get me.
I had noticed that it seems that my frags had kinda stalled out lately, with very slow growth. Maybe this was the problem.
Anyway, I put a meter probe to a known ground, and then one in the water and was getting as high as 43 volts!!! I unplugged everything one at a time and as it turns out, the light was the problem... because it wasn't grounded well. I'm not electromaticer, but this can't be a good thing when you get shocked like this. My house is old, so most outlets only have 2 prongs. I may be working up a grounding strip near my frag and sump setup so I can run grounds from every powerstrip.
Perhaps it wasn't a problem unless I did something that connected the light fixture to the water. In other words...I don't know that any electricity was running through the water WITHOUT my completing the circuit. If anybody is better at electrical stuff than I am, and can help me with more info, I'm definitely open to it.
