Question for electrician...

I have a house (ranch) built in the mid 50's. I was told the wiring in the house was 2nd generation wiring during house inspection...not romex, the stuff before that. Its White kinda has the texture that a cast would have when u break your leg or arm. I had the electrical box updated about 6 months ago and im wondering if the current wiring will be ok with my new tank....pumps and lights. Im estimating around 600-650 watts of electricity if everything was ran at the same time. I figured lites would be the largest energy drawer, im gonna use 4 t5's with an ice cap ballast. a precision marine skimmer (bullet 1), eheim 1262 return pump, micro jet 606, tunze 6055, tunze 6045, 2 12/14 watt fans, 2 icecap retrofit moonlights, and a 250 watt heater. Can anyone help me out?

Thanks in advance
Dennis

 

are the plugs grounded or two prong?

 

I am a licensed electrician in the state of New Jersey here is my advice. I would not worry about the wiring as much as the grounding at your receptacle. Make sure you have a 3 prong receptacle. Next if you are predicting @ 600-650 watts of power you will only be using around 5-5.5 amps which is not a lot of power considering that you probably have a 15 or 20 amp circuit . I would try and figure out which breaker controls that outlet here is how you can do so, plug in a radio and turn off breakers untill you find it (if your panel is not labeled that is) when you find it see what other appliances are effected if any (TV Stereo Etc.) as long as you don't have any major appliances like a microwave or coffee pot on that same circuit you should be fine. Any more questions send me a message and good luck. 8)

 

Is it the Old style B-X cable you have ? its just two wires wrapped inside a coil like metal shielding that is grounded to a metal work box in the wall. See if there is a wire in the box in the back with a wire connected to ground .. There are ways to fix this but the best way to to just pull a new leg from the panel. But you can ground it to that metal box also if its what I think you have. But all you can see from outside the box looking in is just a black and white wired with dry rotted cloth wrapping for an insulator. and its cracked and falling off ..And you would have to no the Ga size of that wire to acess the amp load of it's capacity

 

Hi crabby jim, im pretty sure its a 20 amp, 15 at the least. The box was recently replaced and it is marked. There are only lights and bedroom tvs on that breaker at best so im pretty sure im of as far as power goes....no major appliances. Next question is that its not grounded but i have bought a gfci...would that suffice? Most of the plugs in the house arent grounded. I dont wanna fry anything, start a fire or zap myself. Thanks for the help

Dennis

 

You must make sure that the receptacle is grounded a GFCI receptacle will not even work properly unless it it grounded. I would suggest that since you had an electrician at the house to upgrade the service I would get them back to make sure that the receptacle is squared away you can get a deadly shock from messing around with a fish tank set up that is plugged in to an ungrounded receptacle. better to be safe then sorry.

 

Crabby jim, thanx for the help. My next option was to run a dedicated breaker to the fish tank. The box was grounded so i imagine running a new line to the room with new wire will solve my problems, and of course id use a gfci. The electrician drove a 6-8 copper spike outside into the ground. Thanks again

 

Pick up on of these: E-Z Check Circuit Tester Cheap way to test your hole house to see if it is grounded and polarity is correct.

 

Hey Dennis. The wiring you have is old, but could be worse. The oldest is knob and tube, which you don't have. Your wiring is fabric covered/insulated wiring. There's nothing wrong with it, although it's so old, that if it's handled too much it deteriorates pretty easily. You may have noticed this if you've looked at some of your receptacles. If the wire is bent by hand, the fabric insulation just falls away like dust. As other electricians have said on this thread, your major concern is not the wiring so much as it is the grounding.

As long as your existing receptacles have 3 prongs, you should be able to replace the outlet nearest your tank with a GFCI outlet. Then you can use a multiplier to increase the number of cords the receptacle will host. If it's at least a 15 amp circuit (which most are, even the old ones) your tank will be well served, lights, pumps, and all.

It's a good thing that you're asking these questions now rather than later. You'll be fine.

For the utmost in protection, if your panel will allow (but some older-style panels won't accomodate such an upgrade), have a licensed electrician install a GFCI breaker. This will make all receptacles on its circuit GFCI protected.

 

Electrical to tank

As an electrician I noticed that the service has been upgraded. Have your electrician supply a 20 amp/120 volt circuit to your tank area. Have him put a 20 amp/120 volt GFI receptacle at that point to plug in your equipment. The use of "power bars" for extra outlets may be used as long as they are rated so. Your local FS should be selling UL tested and rated devices. Do not purchase crap made in China as they probably have not been tested by UL and such have not been regulated as SAFE.
Good Luck.