Today on the BRS 160 we are going get electrical
Hey guys my name is Ryan, welcome to another week of the BRS 160 where every week we do
our best to help you guys, members of the reefing community enjoy your tanks and find
new ways to explore the hobby.
We do that by following the set up and progression of this one hundred and sixty gallon reef
tank.
This week we are going dive into the electrical needs for the tank.
We are dealing with saltwater and electricity which can be both a health and fire hazard.
It’s not that difficult to make it safe as long as you plan for this when you set
the tank up.
Most important components to consider are your homes electrical infrastructure, water
safety and proper cord management.
We’ll of coarse finish with the installation of our solution for the BRS160.
First step of this is making sure you have enough power for your tank.
Just to you give you the typical consumption of a four foot reef tank.
You probably have a three hundred watt heater, LED lighting is around three hundred watts.
Fifty to a hundred watts of powerheads, a hundred watt return pump.
Fifty watt skimmer, and maybe another fifty for other filtration equipment.
So that’s a base line of about a thousand watts for a typical aquarium.
Add a chiller, UV light, T5 or halide lighting, calcium reactor, ozone reactor, Zeovit reactor,
refugium and other various pieces of gear and you can quickly start using a considerable
amount of power.
Most homes will have fifteen amp circuits but if you are lucky the circuit might be
20 amps.
On a 15 amp circuit you can run up to around 1,800 watts and a 20 amp circuit will be around
2400 watts.
Best way to identify this is locate the circuit breaker and it will say on the end of the
switch.
If you know you have a limited amount of power available at the location you want to place
the tank and adding another circuit isn't an option you can reduce this electrical load
significantly by selecting energy efficient equipment like LED lighting and only installing
the things you absolutely need on the tank.
Now that you know what you are working with and what the limit is we need to figure out
two things; what else is on that circuit and how much power will your tank consume.
If you can, get as many other things off the outlets on the circuit you plan on using as
possible and make sure nothing that consumes a ton of power is on that circuit.
For example it is a bad idea to use the same circuit that has a twelve hundred watt microwave,
thousand watt entertainment system or space heater on it because there will be very little
power left for the aquarium before the breakers trigger.
Keep in mind that we don't want the breakers to trigger ever because the tank needs power
to maintain the life support system.
The breakers triggering are also a warning sign that you are overloading the circuit
which is fire hazard and shouldn't be ignored.
If you are uncertain about any of this and want some advice or want to get a second circuit
installed google, craigslist or Angie's List an electrician and get it done right.
Once you have figured out your electrical load and how you are going to handle it try
to avoid plugging more occasional high consumption items into that circuit in the future and
make sure you let your family know that it is a bad idea to plug in vacuums, clothes
irons, hair driers and similar items into these outlets.
Since we are dealing with water it is also highly recommend using either GFI outlets
or circuit breakers which help protect your tank and home from shorts, especially those
related to water.
If you can’t do that you can also use power bars which have GFI’s built in.
Some reefers might suggest against using GFI’s because they can be can be accidentally triggered
but I think protecting your home kind of trumps all and there isn’t a lot of debate to be
had.
If you can’t use a GFI or don't want to you do have other alternatives, mainly being
just put more effort into other safety elements.
Biggest issue to consider is water always runs downhill and power cords are like water
freeways that lead strait into a high power electrical box.
More or less we need to address this and completely eliminate these cord freeways.
Which means something like a power bar laying down on the bottom of the stand where water
can flow right into them is not ok, not even for a single day.
In an ideal world that means we would install all of our power bars and outlets above the
tank.
Water doesn't travel up so this is the safest option but most of us can’t do that so we
do the next best thing which is install drop loops.
You will find a diagram of a drip loop with basically anything electrical sold with the
aquarium.
It’s more or less a bend in the cord so if something leaked and started to travel
down the cord it would fall of the bend in the loop rather than flow right into an electrical
socket.
We also need to put something in place to secure the loop in place like a hook, clamp
or zip ties.
Your power bars should be mounted as high as possible and away from things that can
spray if they malfunction or get ignored like a like full protein skimmer.
While they are typically not considered water tight I also like to plug unused outlets with
caps like these which will reduce the chances of random spray causing an issue.
It’s also wise to not put the tank directly in front of the outlet if possible and out
it beside the outlet instead.
This makes it a lot easier to keep water from running in the outlet if something were to
happen to your drip loops.
The next piece of this is neatness and organization counts.
If it looks neat and organized with everything securely mounted the chances of it being safe
go way up over the painfully common cord octopus which is typically not safe.
I think one of the best ways to achieve that is to mount everything to a separate board
where you can neatly and securely route all of your cords behind the board.
Then mount the board inside your stand or on the wall.
One of the most common boards for this is just a white Rubbermaid shelf which can be
found at any large hardware store for a few bucks.
On the back of the board you can use a variety of different things to secure the cords.
For equipment and cords I am fairly certain are not going to change a lot and I won’t
have to remove for maintenance zip ties and these adhesive pads work well.
For items like skimmers, pumps and heaters which do need to be removed periodically for
cleaning I suggest using Velcro straps or something similar which are easy to open,
close and reuse.
I also like these plastic adhesive clamps which allow you to easily open and close them.
Make sure to drill the holes big enough that you can get all the cord heads through.
On the front of the board you can install these plastic caps which close the hole up
and make it a bit cleaner.
These can also be found at most larger hardware stores.
One note specifically related to routing your PH, Salinity and ORP probes.
These probes can have noise interference issues if you route them with all of your power cords
and near noisy ballets.
Probes also need to be replaced so if you can try to rout them away from all of the
other cords and make them easy to remove without cutting a bunch of zip ties apart.
If that isn't possible try and use a higher quality probe which are commonly referred
to as lab grade probes.
Most of these should have much better shielding on the cord to eliminate or reduce that noise
and give more accurate readings.
If you are interested in how it achieves that or what makes a lab grade probe different
check out the video on our site, it is interesting how some things that look so similar can perform
very differently.
Ok so on to our install.
This is going to be pretty simple because we don’t have many things hooked up to the
tank yet but I am going to get the infrastructure in place for success later.
First I had an electrician install a 20 amp circuit just for this tank.
Over the course of this series we are going to plug a ton of equipment into the tank and
I just don't want issues.
If I knew we were going to use halide lighting and a chillier who both consume a lot of power
I might have had them install two circuits.
The circuit is GFI’d here at the breaker box which will protect me and the building
if anything were to go wrong.
The outlets themselves I had installed higher than the tank itself and on an opposing wall
away from the sump.
The chance of water getting into these outlets is pretty slim.
We also mounted our boards.
The first one here has our power bars with holes drilled for the cords to go through.
As long as we always bring the cord up through the hole and plug the cord into a socket above
the hole that will serve as our permanent drip loops that won’t get disturbed.
The other boards will be used to mount our other equipment like the Vectra’s controller.
Ultimately we are going to use all this to mount the aquarium controller and the accessories
as well.
If you really hate cords there are also cord management tracks you can buy which hide everything.
I think you can probably start to see what I mean when I say clean and organized typically
also means safe.
This room has a fire alarm and sprinklers in it but if yours doesn't install a detector.
If you have a cord octopus disaster and despite everything you saw here today don't plan on
fixing it do yourself a favor and pick up a small fire extinguisher as well.
Couple last tips related to electrical safety, make sure your power bars can handle the load
and don't look for the cheapest thing out there.
Your whole tank is depending on this thing to work so buy something quality from a brand
you recognize and trust.
In relation to that there is a lot of super cheap aquarium equipment being imported these
days.
The cost of these things can make them super enticing but there is a reason they are so
cheap.
Ultra-low cost imports are almost never associated with high quality but more importantly safety.
You are going to have to weigh the value verses quality and safety on your own.
Since it is impossible for the average reefer to know what’s safe and what isn’t the
best way for is just look around and see who sells these products in the US.
Do the vendors who know the industry and you trust show you they trust these manufactures
by selling their products?
If not you might want to do some additional research.
If the only outlet is eBay, a foreign website or relatively unknown website this almost
always means it is unsafe trash and reputable vendors either don't want to put their customers
in danger or deal with the lawsuits.
Last tip I have is if you are a beginner and find all this intimidating give some thought
to those all in one tanks like the Nuvo from Innovative Marine.
They do consume less power than the average tank and the nature of not having a sump with
water in the cabinet below makes it a lot easier install a safe electrical solution.
Next week we are going get water into the tank, you seriously don't want to miss it
so hit that subscribe button.
If you are interested in learning more about any of the products we talked about in today’s
video hit this link.
See you next week with episode seven of the BRS 160: Water!