Pump leaking voltage

[BeefyG]

I've got a mag drive pump that is leaking voltage into the tank. I can feel my cuticles tingle when I put my hand in the tank. Unplugging the pump makes it go away. Please tell me that there is a way to fix this. I just bought a new impeller for this pump. Take it out, let it dry, and silicone all the seams maybe?

[danielp]

Could be a tough problem to fix.

1st thing to do is see if there is a cover plate that will allow access to the interminal power cord electrical termination.

if so take it off and see if there is any moisture present. if so dry it out replace the cover and reseal it.

Basically you have to look for any entry point or electrial cord interface with water. You then need to determine if these connections are properly sealed.

ou will see seals in older pumps start to break down.

Water very very easily follows the most minor of cracks and cuts to what ever stops it next.

i deal with this every day at work and it can be tough to solve.

Good luck,

[BeefyG]

Swapped it out with another and now its worse. My house isn't grounded so the ground prong isn't actually going to anything. I've only used a sump with my trophs when I was growing them out. I tried it with my discus once but they all turned black and one of them died before I cut the sump off. I can only feel the voltage with my hand that I scraped up yesterday. My other hand feels nothing. How bad is this for fish?

[danielp]

Raw current not having a grounding pathway isn't good.

water is the one of the easiest and most dangerous conductor's there is.

i use gfci power strips on all my tanks.

doesn't sound like you have that option.

Weslydnunder can offer more of an opion than i can. He's more of an electrical person than i am i'm mostly electronics.

[BeefyG]

I work with high voltage electronics which is why I'm sensitive to little tingles. Usually means I'm screwing up somehow. Maybe I should just wrap the whole thing in duct tape. I think that might work.

[danielp]

use okonite tape (rubber tape with adhesive backing) if you can.

you probably know what it is.

[wesleydnunder]

The receptacle supplying power to your tanks should be GFCI protected. The problem with having an ungrounded circuit is there's no equipment grounding conductor for the leakage current to flow through. This can render GFCIs ineffective, as they rely on leakage current differential of around 5 milliamps between the hot and neutral conductors of the circuit. If you know which piece of equipment is faulty, the best thing to do is take it out of service. It's kind of odd that two pumps are doing the same thing, though not unheard of. Usually it's water leaking into the cord fitting at the pump. Silicone will sometimes be enough to fix it.

Now would be a good time to get an electrician to your house to get a grounded circuit over to the tank. I'd get him to check the polarity of the existing circuit too. It's possible that you have hot and neutral reversed at the receptacle.

Mark

[BeefyG]

Rewiring the house has been on my to do list since we bought the house but it ain't cheap. We just got the main replaced not too long ago. We had a bad wire coming into the house and those fuses were getting expensive, lol.

I siliconed the pump last night so we'll see if it still does it. I think the housing seam was actually leaking.

[BeefyG]

Mark, is the voltage bad for fish? As a friend pointed out to me, they aren't grounded but it seems to me that some fish could be sensitive to electrical fields. Its a freshwater tank, specifically a troph/shell dweller tank. I don't have any fish in it yet but I was hoping to move them over soon.

[fshfrk]

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/archive/index.php/t-33309.html

[BeefyG]

Silicone fixed it. Now if I could just get enough heaters in it to get it up to temp, lol

[wesleydnunder]

Good link, John.

Mark