Neptune Aquatics

Electrical Help

NickRoseSN1985

NickRoseSN1985

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I’m wanting to put my garage tank on it’s own circuit. I’ll install the outlets and the wire but I’ll have a electrician connect it to the breaker. Should the boxes and outlets be weather resistant or is it ok to use the regular stuff. I was thinking of using these for the box and cover
www.homedepot.com

RACO 4 in. W x 2-1/8 in. D Gray 2-Gang Welded Square Box with Ten 1/2 in. KO's and Six 3/4 in. KO's, Raised Ground, 1-Pack 8232 - The Home Depot

Manufactured from durable pre-galvanized steel. Designed to house and protect electrical wiring, switches, receptacles and support light fixtures. Steel boxes are UL listed and acceptable for use in 2-hour
www.homedepot.com
www.homedepot.com

RACO 4 in. W Steel Metallic 2-Gang Two-Device Universal Exposed Work Square Cover with 6-in-1 Plates, 1-Pack 809U - The Home Depot

RACO Surface Covers used to support switches or receptacles in areas where the box is surface mounted or positioned in exposed work applications. Exposed work covers are 1/2
www.homedepot.com

Depending on if I go the weather resistant or not one of these will be the outlets. Also the breaker box has 20amp circuit breakers is it ok to use 15amp outlets since there are multiple of them?
www.homedepot.com

Leviton 15 Amp 125-Volt Duplex Self-Test Slim GFCI Outlet, White (4-Pack) M42-GFNT1-04W - The Home Depot

Peace of mind, all the time. The SmartlockPro Self-Test GFCI tests itself even if you forget. Designed to meet the latest UL standard for auto-monitoring (self-test) our complete line of self-test GFCIs
www.homedepot.com
www.homedepot.com

Leviton 15 Amp 125-Volt Duplex Self-Test Tamper Resistant/Weather Resistant GFCI Outlet, White R92-GFWT1-0KW - The Home Depot

Peace of mind, all the time. The SmartlockPro Self-Test GFCI tests itself even if you forget. Designed to meet the latest UL standard for auto-monitoring (self-test), our complete line of self-test GFCIs
www.homedepot.com

The Blue tape is where the outlets will be. I was thinking since the outlets will be above any water it would be ok for it not to be weather resistant.
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i would use grey pvc boxes evenually the galvanized boxes will rust. looks like you will be running conduit on surface of sheet rock? or are gonna run romex between the studs under sheet rock?
 
I would recommend that if your breaker is 20 amps, then use 20 amp wires and 20 amp outlets. The wire is especially important. The cost difference is small.
If you use 15 amp wires, then replace the 20 amp circuit breaker with a 15 amp. I'm not an electrician, but I know that the wiring should be the highest amperage component.
 
Vincerama2 said:
I would recommend that if your breaker is 20 amps, then use 20 amp wires and 20 amp outlets. The wire is especially important. The cost difference is small.
If you use 15 amp wires, then replace the 20 amp circuit breaker with a 15 amp. I'm not an electrician, but I know that the wiring should be the highest amperage component.
Click to expand...
Yeah I’ve been reading up and already planned to us 12 gauge wire. Also from what I was reading it seems like if you have multiple 15amp outlets it would be fine to use the 20amp circuit. But I’ll keep researching that.
 
Regardless of what code requires, I always use weather resistant outlets around aquariums. They don't cost much more, splashes happen, and I can't tell you how many corroded outlets I've seen around reef tanks.

Also, if the outlets are going to be behind something, put the GFCI that the other outlets daisy off of somewhere more accessible. That way the thing you have to reset is easy to get to, not buried behind something, and you still get the protection.
 
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I will be using double gang boxes and was wondering if I should have two GFCIs in each or have one GFCI and one regular since the gfci will protect the regular outlet?
Also need help finding a cover for this box I got at Home Depot. Should I go with one of those weather cases or would that be overkill? The outlets will be around head height.
Your friend has shared a link to a Home Depot product they think you would be interested in seeing.

1/2 in. 2-Gang FSC Wall box

www.homedepot.com

Cantex 1/2 in. 2-Gang FSC Wall box R5133370 - The Home Depot

The 1/2 in. 2-Gang FSC Box is used for straight line conduit runs and splices. This surface-mounted electrical box has 1 conduit entrance hub in each of the 2 short walls of the box and uses standard 2-gang device covers. This product conforms to UL safety standards and is quick and easy to install.
www.homedepot.com
 
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If you wire them up correctly a GFCI can protect several downstream outlets. It's important to correct to the right set of terminals on the GFCI for this to be true, and they often have warning labels about this to help you out. It's one more step than making sure hot connects to hot and neutral to neutral.


Below is a diagram showing how I did mine back in TX. As mentioned in a prior post, the breaker first came to GFCI circuits that were accessible. They then connected to the outlets behind the tank where everything was actually plugged in. This saved me at least once because I had a device trip while I was out of town. My wife was willing to keep resetting the GFCI as she plugged/unplugged things on the system. I had a power strip on top of the canopy she could get to, but the GFCI still had to be reset several times. She would have been a lot less willing, or at least a lot more stressed out, if the reset was buried behind the tank. There were over a dozen devices connected, and my troubleshooting order wasn't stunning over the phone, so there were a lot of resets.
I also figured if I was going to be pulling power for an aquarium I might as well pull two circuits. In my case I really needed to do this due to the total power of everything connected, but it's a good idea anyways. I had half of my lights, heaters, and a return pump on one circuit. I had the other half of the lights, heaters, and the other return pump on the second circuit. Doing this also resulted in having at least one EB8 (Apex) on each circuit. This way if (when) the GFCI trips the Apex brain stays alive off of the other circuit and can register the current drop rather than going dark.

In your case if you only want to pull one circuit then you are correct, only one GFCI, at the start of the chain, is needed*.

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*Don't be like whatever hack wired my kitchen. They put them in a chain AND made each outlet a GFCI. As a minor benefit, if one trips it only takes out the ones downstream of it, not the entire system (unless it's the first one), but it's more expensive than using just a GFCI at the start. If they wanted to use all GFCI outlets so they only trip individually they should not have been wired in series.
 
Yeah it’s going to be one circuit. I was thinking of doing all GFCI but now thinking of doing one GFCI and one regular in each box. The GFCIs would be parallel.

The devices on this circuit would be 2 AI Vegas, 2 Mag9.5 pumps(one return, 1 is pump for AquaC skimmer), 2 icecap gyres on their dual wifi controller, Inkbird with 300W heater and small fan, two sump lights.
 
Well all done with the rough wiring, still need to do the pigtails. Once that’s done a neighbor that is a retired electrician will inspect my work before the city does. I know I can ask my neighbor but the what is the minimum/maximum amount of wire coming out of the boxes. Right now there at 10 inches. I believe I read that code is 6inches.


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