Aquarium Electrical Safety

by Aimee Amodio | More from this Blogger

23 Sep 2007 10:57 AM

Water... and electricity. Sounds like a bad combination, right? But in your aquarium -- if you have a filtration system or a heater or lights or other nifty gadgets -- you probably have electricity and water living in close quarters.

Here's a scary fact: the amount of current needed to give a person an electric shock is low. Only ten milliamps can give you a painful shock. Fifty milliamps and above can be fatal. And your filters and heaters and lighting may be using something like eight hundred milliamps. That's more than enough to be dangerous.

RULE ONE: Turn off ALL electrical power to your aquarium before you put your hand in the water. If there isn't any electricity running, you can't get a serious jolt.

RULE TWO: Your aquarium needs a special circuit breaker. It can get expensive, but isn't your family's safety worth it? An earth leakage circuit breaker (ELCB for short) will monitor the current and break the circuit if a fault develops. ELCBs are set to break the current above a certain point -- like 10 or 30 milliamps -- so your other household appliances won't set things off unnecessarily.

• An ELCB can be wired into your house's main power switchboard. It gives the same protection to all electrical use in the house -- not just the aquarium. This is probably the most expensive option, as you'll need an electrician to do the work.
• An ELCB can be mounted on the wall to replace a standard socket and dedicated to just your aquarium equipment. You may have to hit a specialty shop -- not your local hardware store -- to find this kind of ELCB.
• An ELCB can be plugged into a standard socket, like a surge protector. The advantage of this kind of ELCB is that you can put it anywhere -- if you decide to move your aquarium, it can move with you.

RULE THREE: Water doesn't flow up. If your tank springs a leak, do you want the water running down the cord and right into your circuit breaker or wall socket? Stringing the cords upwards before bringing them down to the socket can help keep drips safely away from electricity.

Aquarium owners -- any other tips for electrical safety?

Learn more about Aimee Amodio

Aimee is a fiction writer... dog lover... music lover...

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Kristyn Crow (2546) 23 Sep 2007 04:17 PM

This is an excellent tip. Our house almost burned down when water from our salt water tank dripped onto an exposed outlet. Burned a big hole in the wall.