Fish room GFCI tripped?

[jacobB89]

so last night I got home from work and i heard the alarm for my ATO going of ran down stairs lucky it wasn't the worst and water on the floor! But my tank lost power due to a GFCI tripping on one of my outlets.

 

No water near it nothing I seen that would make it trip?

 

The way i have them wired its there are 4 GFCI receptacles all on one breaker.(1 line)

 

I read somewhere that maybe I should swap 3 to normal outlets and only 1 GFCI? I am not to sure on this though.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

[AlanM]

So 4 separate GFCI all wired in parallel or in series?  Meaning if the first one in the chain trips do they all lose power or do the others stay on?  Seems like not a terrible thing if the others aren't on the load side of the GFCI, so only the one that has a fault will trip.

 

I was tripping one for a while with a fluorescent light fixture.  When the ballast would fire up the GFCI would trip about half the time.  

[DuffyGeos]

I am not an electrician, but if you switch out the breaker to a GFI breaker then the entire line is covered. GFI's are notorious for being bad straight from the manufacturer. The more they trip, the more sensitive they become and tend to trip more after that, so watch out.

[ChrisTran]

I would shut off one equipment at a time to see if the GFCI still trips.  Last time it happened to me, my heater broke and tripped the outlets.

[jacobB89]

So 4 separate GFCI all wired in parallel or in series?  Meaning if the first one in the chain trips do they all lose power or do the others stay on?  Seems like not a terrible thing if the others aren't on the load side of the GFCI, so only the one that has a fault will trip.

 

I was tripping one for a while with a fluorescent light fixture.  When the ballast would fire up the GFCI would trip about half the time.  

if one trips they all trip my dad wired it when we did the fish room.

 

I am not an electrician, but if you switch out the breaker to a GFI breaker then the entire line is covered. GFI's are notorious for being bad straight from the manufacturer. The more they trip, the more sensitive they become and tend to trip more after that, so watch out.

have to look into that

 

I would shut off one equipment at a time to see if the GFCI still trips.  Last time it happened to me, my heater broke and tripped the outlets.

it only tripped one time its been fine all day today and before maybe a fluke thing but still don't need it happening over a long time with no power to multiple things.

[AlanM]

if one trips they all trip my dad wired it when we did the fish room.

I would ask him to come back and switch them so they are all wired in parallel off the "line" side rather than the "load" side so that only the affected one will trip. Its redundant to have multiple gfci off the load side since everything downstream from the load side will trip the first one anyway, even if they are normal outlets.

[Reefer_Madness]

I am not an electrician, but if you switch out the breaker to a GFI breaker then the entire line is covered. GFI's are notorious for being bad straight from the manufacturer. The more they trip, the more sensitive they become and tend to trip more after that, so watch out.

Duffy is right. GFCIs are notorious for being set wrong from the factory. I am in construction and have chased that ghost many times. Every time it has been the GFCI. That is where I would start.

[Reefer_Madness]

I would ask him to come back and switch them so they are all wired in parallel off the "line" side rather than the "load" side so that only the affected one will trip. Its redundant to have multiple gfci off the load side since everything downstream from the load side will trip the first one anyway, even if they are normal outlets.

+1

[jacobB89]

sounds good swap to parallel and see if that helps

[fishgate]

You only need 1 GFI on the line. Don't do the breaker box GFI it will cause more problems down the road. As someone else mentioned, lights can trip the GFI. Some GFIs are very sensitive and some of your equipment might trip them continuously. If it was me, I would simply remove the GFI from those devices. This is also one reason to not have a whole-circuit based GFI.

[John Ford]

I personally would keep the breaker that is there and use four seperate gfci receptacles. Make sure the circuit is tied into the line side. That way if one trips your only shutting off whatever is plugged into that receptacle. If you use a gfci breaker and it trips or one gfi outlet your entire tank shuts off. I only have one gfi personally but if i already had four i would keep it that way and make sure they were wired properly. Just my own opinion.

[Jon Lazar]

I would skip GFCI protection on critical devices like your return pump, especially if it's not a submersible pump.

[wangspeed]

Some devices are notorious for leaking a little bit back into the ground line like T5 and MH ballasts and mag pumps. Any of those on the line?

 

 

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Warren