Mobile Bay Reef Keepers

Well...... Tonight I was sitting in the living room admiring the new tank when "click"........ the circuit blew. Flipped the breaker. I'm running my tank off the same circuit as the refrigerator....of all things I do not even have the 440 watts of actinic going yet

Anyone know how to run a dedicated line to the tank This was the first time that has happened...but still....not a good sign. It would suck if that happened in the morning ...the tank and fridge would be out all day!

Sugeestions or solutions please!

Yeah kinda shawn, you are going to have to run a line back to breaker box and look for an open slot in box, if there is not one you may have to get a Tandem breaker...i think i spelled that right.

Okay Shawn....this is gonna be the best advise I will ever give you.....

HIRE A PROFESSIONAL ELECTRICIAN TO DO THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There are a few reasons.....

1) They would know (or should know) what is required to keep your place up to code.

2) It keeps you from having to risk getting electricuted.

3) It keeps you from having to figure out how much amperage you need and how to install it, and most importantly

4) If anything goes wrong, the company that did the work will be liable for it!

I am serious about this. We had an electrician come out and install dedicated circuits. Didn't cost us but about $125 and I can bet we did a whole lot more elctrical work that you will have to do!

Good luck!

Elizabeth

Sounds pretty reasonable to me Liz....

Home wiring is really not that bad once you have worked on it a few times, yes if you are working where the power could be on that would be dangerous. I normally will turn off all of the power to the house if there could be current still out there, but if you can find a reasonable priced electrician go that route. In the new house i will hire an electrician to do the additional tank circuits. I opted to do most of my work myself in this house.

There's nothing to it. I rewired my entire house and I have never done hardly any home wiring before. It's really simple. I have a dedicated breaker on my tank. All you should need is a 15 amp breaker and some 12-2 wire. Like snoopdog said you have to have an empty slot. Most modern breaker boxes have plenty. You might just be able to add a larger breaker to stop it from tripping. It could be undersized. Still you are going to get a little bit of a power flux everytime your refrigerator comperson kicks in.

well, I have all 20 amp breakers and found out tonight that the breakers are the best in the business and cannot be mixed and matched with standard breakers. I was told to take the single breaker and replace it with 2 small breakers...still 20 amps just on a smaller switch so 2 can fit in a single space.

I will run one dedicated 20 amp to the tank outlets.

So you have all double 20 amp breakers. I have 20 amp breakers on all my large appliances and 15s on ever thing else. I've go a 20 on my tank.

Yeah that is what i was talking about, I think they are called Tandem or Tandam breakers, not sure on spellling. But what they are is two breakers that are joined together to save space.

Just for clarification.....our house is only 6 years old...and guess what? No extra slots in the box for any more circuits! Ours are 20 amp breakers too.....but we added four!

Elizabeth

This is what i was talking about, spellling is Tandem.

http://www.lowes.com/lkn?action=product ... P&pad=true