I know this is an old thread, but I just discovered a similar situation in my salt water system. My system is 2 tanks, 75Gal and 125Gal, sharing a 35Gal sump. The 75Gal was integrated into my setup about 3 weeks ago. Last weekend for the first time I felt a stinging when touching the water surface while standing on a carpeted concrete slab floor with bare feet, with a small cut on my finger. Turn everything off, and the stinging was gone. I narrowed the source down to my pumps, 4 Hydor powerheads, a Mag 1800 Return, and a Reef Octo Skimmer with a Bubble Blaster pump. My Snap On Vantage automotive volt meter ($3000 new) showed 28 Volts, positive lead in the water, negative to ground receptacle. Unplug the pumps one at a time, and the voltage dissapates little by little, along with the stinging sensation. My hands are cut up all of the time, so my curiousity is why is this happening all of the sudden. Even with just the skimmer running, I feel something. I want to believe that it is the very recent addition of Kalkwasser to my gravity fed ATO, causing something in my water chemistry to make me feel the stray voltage, that was most likely always there. Or maybe the Kalkwasser is making the water more conductive.
Anyway, here is the most interesting part, and I can't figure out the reason for it. If I split the loads, 4 power heads plugged into one receptacle, and the return pump along with the skimmer plugged into a different receptacle on a completely different house circuit, voltage drops from 28 Volts down to 1.4Volts! No more stinging. Unplug either one, half the voltage is back, 14Volts, and so is the stinging. Its like splitting the circuits is making the magnetic fields from the pumps cancel out each other.
Any ideas?
Also wanted to add, with 28 Volts in the water, my Ammeter, capable of DC Milliamps only, showed no current at all. Inconclusive because it is a DC meter, but worth mentioning
Anyway, here is the most interesting part, and I can't figure out the reason for it. If I split the loads, 4 power heads plugged into one receptacle, and the return pump along with the skimmer plugged into a different receptacle on a completely different house circuit, voltage drops from 28 Volts down to 1.4Volts! No more stinging. Unplug either one, half the voltage is back, 14Volts, and so is the stinging. Its like splitting the circuits is making the magnetic fields from the pumps cancel out each other.
Any ideas?
Also wanted to add, with 28 Volts in the water, my Ammeter, capable of DC Milliamps only, showed no current at all. Inconclusive because it is a DC meter, but worth mentioning