Power Strips

[yngplo]

Hey all,

I currently use tripp lite power strips to keep my tank on, and I really like that my power strips come with individual power switches.
I'm starting to find that I don't have enough power outlets for how much gear I'm putting onto my tank.
What do you guys use on your tanks, and how many power outlets does your tank take up? I know it's not safe to daisy chain power strips, so I'm thinking about buying a larger strip.

Thanks!

 

[Devon]

I have an apex with 8 outlets and a triplite strip with 6 outlets. I would suggest getting larger plug strips and not daisy chain them together. But the real question is how much total load on the circuit breaker? Often other outlets are tied to the one that your aquarium is plugged into unless you have a designated circuit. Hope this helps

 

[sfsuphysics]

Well if you just need outlets and not maximum power (i.e. low powered things like wavemakers instead of heaters) then DJ power strips (various brand names) are a good investment, I think they have 8 outlets, each outlet has their own power toggle and you plug in the back and toggle on the front. Two of these should be more than enough for most tanks just need to keep mindful of not plugging in too much power to them, dosing pumps = good 1000W heaters = bad.

Now if you need a lot of power (more than ~1500 watts) then you're going to need a more than one circuit. to bring power to your tank which is a whole different ball game.

That said with my 200g tank before I shut it down I did have 2 of these power strips, not fully populated mind you just more piece of mind for the future (irony!) I also had 3- 4gang boxes at various places around the tank too and 2- 20amp circuits that was fish tank only power. The reason for the boxes is so that I didn't have to run cords everywhere, e.g. lights above the tank, and I don't really trust any power strips with items with long sustained current draws in humid environments, I've had that "expensive electrical smell" more than once around power strips and always on the heater plug.

 

[richiev]

I am pretty happy with the kasa smart strips. The 6 outlet one. I think they're $50-$60. They can be controlled by Google/Siri/Alexa so you can pretty trivially have "ok Google, main tank full feeding time" do things like flip the pumps off, 10 minutes later turn on the powerheads, 4 minutes after that flip on the return pump, 1 minute after that turn on the skimmer. You can also schedule things on them that will run even without wifi connectivity. Also unique is you can control them over your home network, even if your external internet goes down. I use this setup in combination with a reef pi controller to manage my heaters + cooling fans.

They also have buttons on them to control the outlets manually, like some sort of animal.

They are a bit big though, and I wish they didn't have the USB ports. I need to cover those still just in case to avoid water splash accidents (I try and cover all unused outlets).