Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Glad you got that sorted out before any damage was done Simso...

Could you list the pump(s).. and description of the faults in the "Pumps - Good ones & Bad ones" thread... for the benefit of others...

Noticed some tingling when having a look at my system this morning. I currently have 3 pumps in the system, all cheap chinese submersible aquarium type pumps. One is in the fish tank running a large swinging arm biofilter that sits above the tank, two are in the sump tank and pump water back to the fish tank. Pumps are set up to run continuously. One of the pumps in the sump tank is unplugged to save on electricity, given that I I am only running the system with very low stocking to keep the mature microenvironment allive until I get around to kicking off big time again. Interesting, yesterday I changed which pump is operating from the sump, because I noticed I was running the smaller of the two.

When I noticed the tingling this morning, I figured it was time to work out if it was coming from a single source. Firstly I turned off the power point that is supplying the power to the pumps. No more tingling. I then hooked back up the pump in the fish tank (still no tingling). Hooked up the pump in the sump that I've been using the last day and tingling was back. Disconnected this and plugged in the otehr one instead - no tingling.

I have therefore identified that my Sun Sun HQB 3900 is leaking electricity. I've now removed this from the system and will dispose of, once I've pulled it open to have a look out of curiosity. BTW - the tingling I speak of is actually a bit more than that from today's experience. I was wearing rubber thongs at the time so was not earthed in that way. The way I ended up earthed was by brushing my bare shoulder against the metal wall of my shed (the grow-beds back onto this shed wall (fish tank inside the shed). I used this same method when testing the various pumps and the electricity was strong enough for it to shock me (felt like an arc was created) even if I was not touching the shed (though I was very very close - a mm or fraction of mm).

Anyway this seems to be sorted for now, though I will follow through and do something about my earth rods being exposed.

As an asside - who knows the effect this sort of electricity leakage could have on fish. I expect that the effect would only be when earthing occurs (eg if I was earthed at the time and I stuck my hand or a wet (or steel) net into the tank.

We had a friend whos heater had started to short out, every time the heater would come on the fish would go thrashing across the surface and then when the heater was off they would stop, it took a few days before they realised what the problem was, there fish all survived fine. So our tanks which are not earthed probably are a bit kinder on the fish if there is a leakage from the active until someone puts there hand in and creates the circuit

I saw a program that somewhere up in the michigan waterways there is an asian carp that has threatend to take over the eco-system and eat all other species. They zap them with electricity and it was truely impressive how high those suckers could jump. You kind of have to wonder what makes a fish think it is better off out of the water.

Mark

Probably a belt of electricity up it's rear end....

AC is a wonderful thing.
If you grab a hold of a HV power line, and you get good contact, even if you're swinging from it (no earth circuit) there's a chance you'll get fried. This is because of the alternating current. The fish tank WILL act as a big AC Capacitor if it's not connected to ground.
It will therefore charge up and discharge 50 times per second.
I have no idea if this hurts the fish though.
I know, short term it does not, I have a leaky (emergency) pump that I use occasionall, and the fish are not dead from it yet.
It's more of a buzz than a tingle when using that pump too...

This is a real and common problem with saltwater fish tanks. Check out this site for more info: http://angel-strike.com/aquarium/GroundingProbes.html

Barb

Yes it is wonderful Grab a HF HV cable even when you're earthed and nothing happens!

How boring would life be if Edison's scare campaign against Tesla had worked............