Electrical Question / Help Please

[rockymoreland]

If your breaker is kicking off and nothing else is on that breaker your breaker is week and needs to be replaced. Its very easy. You can also change the breaker to a 20 amp instead of the 15 i am sure it has. it will take all of 5 min to change. Find out who makes the breaker box go to Home Depot of Lowes and buy a new single pole breaker 20 amp or 15 amp if you want to keep the same. pop the old breaker out remove the one wire and put wire on new breaker and pop back in its that simple.

 

[rockdog]

I would not be comfortable doing this. If it is a 15amp breaker the wire is more than likley #14 which can only be put on a 15amp breaker(NEC). Just swapping it out for a 20 without changing the wire is asking for trouble IMHO.

Jason

rockymoreland;452838 wrote: If your breaker is kicking off and nothing else is on that breaker your breaker is week and needs to be replaced. Its very easy. You can also change the breaker to a 20 amp instead of the 15 i am sure it has. it will take all of 5 min to change. Find out who makes the breaker box go to Home Depot of Lowes and buy a new single pole breaker 20 amp or 15 amp if you want to keep the same. pop the old breaker out remove the one wire and put wire on new breaker and pop back in its that simple.

 

[schwaggs]

Rockdog;452842 wrote: Just swapping it out for a 20 without changing the wire is asking for trouble IMHO.

The breaker indeed may be weak but swapping out for a 20 AMP if it has a 15 is a recipe for disaster.

What ballast are you running with the Maristar. If they are the non-electronic BlueWave ballasts, they are M80 HQI ballasts that overdrive the 250W bulb to about 380W each. Add this up with the Actinics, and other items on the circuit and you can quickly overload a 15 Amp circuit.

If you have the M80 ballasts, you could consider switching to electronic ballasts instead of installing a new circuit. These will reduce the light output but will also lower the power consumption, typically to right at 250W each. However, IMO, you should get a dedicated 20 Amp circuit installed for the tank instead of spending the money on new ballasts. Having 2 circuits will also allow you to split loads between them to protect you from an outage on a single circuit. For example, you could have your power heads on one circuit and your return pump on another.

Why not run just one of the halide bulbs at a time until you get the new circuit installed?

 

[wam67]

It has the Blue wave 7 ballast