Entire Tank Using One Outlet?

mphammer

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Just curious if a single outlet can handle the load of operating a 120?
Its been set up a while with all of the following equipment plugged in to a single outlet.
-324w 6 buble t5 fixture
-box fan to cool lights
-Five (5) Koralia 1050
-SRO-2000 Skimmer bb hys2000
-Heater
-jbj ATO
-Aqua Medic Ocean Runner 3500 return pump

Don't know much about electricity and not sure, is it safe to have all of this equipment in one outlet?
 
LQQKs like it is working now. Check the cord and check the breaker for temp. The summer. Time will draw more heat as the ambient temp rises. But best thing is to vet all the specs and check; it out. If its maxxed out now means later it could trip as the breakers get older and will trip easier due to heat. Also most builders will run a 20 amp circuit and use a 15 amp receptical., . Do you have a gfi on it?
 
Agree with Heath. From a safety stand point it isn't a problem because if you overload the circuit the breaker should trip. But, that is where the potential problem is. If you have enough plugged into it to trip the breaker than everything sits with no power. I believe you are fine with what you have on it but....what other things in the house are on that same circuit. Many outlets in your home are tied to one breaker. So, if your tank is pushing the limits and someone else plugs a vacuum into a receptacle that is on the same circuit it could trip the breaker.
 
Ah, I'm sure he's done all the vacuuming in he's going to do, and it hasn't trip yet...lol. but if you know somebody that has amp probe it's pretty easy to check the load.
 
rdnelson99;822213 wrote: Agree with Heath. From a safety stand point it isn't a problem because if you overload the circuit the breaker should trip. But, that is where the potential problem is. If you have enough plugged into it to trip the breaker than everything sits with no power. I believe you are fine with what you have on it but....what other things in the house are on that same circuit. Many outlets in your home are tied to one breaker. So, if your tank is pushing the limits and someone else plugs a vacuum into a receptacle that is on the same circuit it could trip the breaker.

+1. If your outlet is dedicated then you shouldn't have any problems. Your energy hogs on that setup are your lights, return pump, and heater when it is active.

Last week I actually just had a breaker that runs the circuit that powers my man cave TV/Stereo etc go off after GA Power did a small series of turn on/offs, as they were working in the area. Strange thing was that I knew it was a circuit breaker, but the breaker did not flip. This same breaker had gone off once in a while in years past when I had a couple FW tanks on it, until I had some dedicated circuits run.

Anyways, I replaced the breaker at the box and it is fine now. I guess circuit breakers can fail as well. Most of the ones in my box are 30 years old.
 
Just keep an eye on it for a while. Mine was originally running off one outlet. Seemed to work fine but of course the first time I went out of town it tripped and the tank was without power for two days.

:lightsaber2:
 
ok a few questions because I know nothing about circuits, breakers, gfi's, etc.
-How do I know which outlets are tied to this circuit?
-How does an amp probe work?
-What is gfi?
 
If you turn the breaker off and it quits working then its on it
Gfi or gfci= ground fault interrupt or ground fault circuit interrupt
As for the amp prob you need a meter that can check flow but it will only check flow on the strip plugged into the receptacle. The only way to check full amp draw requires u to pull the panel cover and then you are exposed to open live current. Which now osha requires you to have certain amount of arc flash protection. So in other words..
Do not open panel unless you are qualified as it could kill you.
 
Small correction Eagle. Most homes have 15 amp breakers with the exception of the ones for the kitchen counter (2-20 circuits are required for the counter). Even in older homes it was common to go with 15 amp so they could use #14 guage wire in lieu of #12 guage. If only one outlet is on a 20 amp breaker the outlet MUST be rated at 20 amp. If however there are more than one outlet on a 20 amp circuit it is perfectly fine to use 15 amp outlets.

As eagle said, turn the breaker off and see which outlets no longer work. You can carry a small radio or lamp around with you to see which are hot and which are not.

In my opinion, a GFCI outlet or circuit breaker is a very important item when dealing with aquariums. In any home built in the last 25 years +/- you will find that the outside receptacles, garage receptacle, kitchen counter receptacles and bathroom receptacles are all GFI protected due to the close proximaty or likelyhood of water. An aquarium fits that bill the last time I checked. hehehehe
 
That is backwards, you can put a 15 amp outlet on a 20 amp circuit. The outlet on the microwave and washer are never rated for 20 amps.
 
billsfan;822256 wrote: That is backwards, you can put a 15 amp outlet on a 20 amp circuit. The outlet on the microwave and washer are never rated for 20 amps.

Sorry but you are mistaken. If you like, I can read you the code book but I am afraid it might put everyone to sleep. LOL
 
You can always down size the receptical as the wire and breaker is over rated. Rich. When i jerked romex 25 yrs ago we only did highend homes with 200+ amp ;services and each room was a min of one 20 amp circuit. All living rooms/ dens had to have a dedicated recptical on each of the 3 walls w/o the door and all motor driven appliances including microwave? All recepticals in kitchen on the counters were not dasiy chained. And within 3' of water was gfic. Decks over 6' had a receptical under them. This was when 12ga wire was 12ga. Now its like 13ga. We also never stuck the wires in the back of the sw/ rec
We always pigtailed and twisted around the screws

Edit: You can always down size the receptical as the wire and breaker is over rated. Rich. When i jerked romex 25 yrs ago we only did highend homes with 200+ amp ;services and each room was a min of one 20 amp circuit. All living rooms/ dens had to have a dedicated recptical on each of the 3 walls w/o the door and all motor driven appliances including microwave? All recepticals in kitchen on the counters were not dasiy chained. And within 3' of water was gfic. Decks over 6' had a receptical under them.

Edit: You can always down size the receptical as the wire and breaker is over rated. Rich. When i jerked romex 25 yrs ago we only did highend homes with 200+ amp ;services and each room was a min of one 20 amp circuit. All living rooms/ dens had to have a dedicated recptical on each of the 3 walls w/o the door and all motor driven appliances including microwave? All recepticals in kitchen on the counters were not dasiy chained. And within 3' of water was gfic. Decks over 6' had a receptical under them.

Back in the day 20amp/ 12ga wire was much bigger then now maybe 13ga wire. We never used 15amp / 14ga wire.

Edit: You can always down size the receptical as the wire and breaker is over rated. Rich. When i jerked romex 25 yrs ago we only did highend homes with 200+ amp ;services and each room was a min of one 20 amp circuit. All living rooms/ dens had to have a dedicated recptical on each of the 3 walls w/o the door and all motor driven appliances including microwave? All recepticals in kitchen on the counters were not dasiy chained. And within 3' of water was gfic. Decks over 6' had a receptical under them.

Bqck in the day 20amp/12ga wire was much bigger. Than today which is around 13ga. We never used 15amp/ 14ga wire

Edit: You can always down size the receptical as the wire and breaker is over rated. Rich. When i jerked romex 25 yrs ago we only did highend homes with 200+ amp ;services and each room was a min of one 20 amp circuit. All living rooms/ dens had to have a dedicated recptical on each of the 3 walls w/o the door and all motor driven appliances including microwave? All recepticals in kitchen on the counters were not dasiy chained. And within 3' of water was gfic. Decks over 6' had a receptical under them.


Bqck in the day 20amp/12ga wire was much bigger. Than today which is around 13ga. We never used 15amp/ 14ga wi0amp/12ga wire was much bigger. Than today which is around 13ga. We never used 15amp/ 14ga wire
 
Sorry Charles but that is not the case. If only on receptacle is on a circuit it must be rated equal to or greater than the rating of the circuit. No exception. If you put a 15 amp receptacle on a dedicated 20 amp circuit you could draw 20 amps without tripping the breaker thereby overloading the receptacle putting you at risk of fire. #12 gauge is now and always has been #12 gauge. If it were anything less it would not be #12 gauge.

Some of the things you did when wiring those homes were not required by code. They were not against it but also not required. General lighting and receptacle circuits are calculated by square feet. In a home it is 3 watts per square foot. In commercial you are required to calculate the lighting (if known) on the actual load of the fixtures to be installed. If unknown the lighting calculations must be 3 watts per square foot. The receptacle circuits in commercial must be calculated at 180 volt amps (watts) per device under common yoke.

What all of that means is that in a home, I could almost put all lighting and receptacles on on circuit with a few exceptions. The home owner would not like it much but by code it would be fine.

One more thing to consider. A fuse can withstand 100% of the rated load indefinitely but a breaker can only withstand 80% if its rated load continuously. Code define continuous as running for 3 hours or more without interruption. Therefore, a 20 amp circuit can not be loaded higher than 16 amps on a continuous basis such as with aquarium lighting, pumps, etc.
 
That is not good logic. Every house in atlanta has a 20 amp circuit just for the dining room and every rec is rated 15 amps. So you can put 16 amps on one of those recs but not on a microwaves 15 amp rec on a 20 amp breaker. I think the rec rating is each other plug in spot on a rec.
 
When more than one outlet shares a circuit it would be highly unlikely that only one of them has a load. Therefore if you plug something that draws 14 amps into one receptacle and something drawing 5 amps into another the circuit load would be 19 amps. The breaker would hold for a period of time but would gradually draw enough heat to trip the breaker (actually called a thermomagnetic breaker) and thereby protect the receptacles from over heating to a point at which a fire hazard would result. In addition, anything that has a current draw in excess of 80% of 15 amps has a different plug configuration that would not fit in a 15 amp receptacle. One prong is vertical and the other is horizontal. A 15 amp receptacle only has vertical slots.
 
The code says single receptacle. They are not talking about duplex receptacles. And i can read that out of the code book for you. 2012 code 210.21(B)(3). Handbook has a gray note about this. There is a lot of confusion about it.
 
Haven't looked at it recently but it used to read "under a common yoke". Back in the day it said common plate. Therefore a quad receptacle would only count as 180 VA. When they went to common yoke it changed it so that a quad wold be 360 VA.
 
Yea the note is new. I knew it because i had to get class hours to keep my license.
 
billsfan;822301 wrote: Yea the note is new. I knew it because i had to get class hours to keep my license.

LOL. Don't you just lie the CEU requirement. I am going to have to bone up soon. They are talking about me getting licensed in multiple states. May be running a $60M job that covers 45 states next year.

Any way.... Back to the OPs problem.

I think you are fine but a dedicated circuit is a better bet. I ran two dedicated circuits to my tank when I set up my 125. Not only is the entire family room one on circuit I tapped it a few years ago to feed the new GFI that feeds my two ponds and pond lighting. LOL
 
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