Is this a crazy idea?

[ellisz]

I was changing my sump yesterday and accidently dropped the main power cord into water! The GFI I have on the aquarium circuit kicked just like it was supposed too.

Anyway, I was thinking ... If I put the cord on the floor behind the sump and it did happen to overflow, it would trip the GFI and kill all the pumps. Any negative effects to this as a failsafe to the main pump draining the tank?

[revhtree]

hmmmm..........have to think on that one.

[fishfreek]

I was changing my sump yesterday and accidently dropped the main power cord into water! The GFI I have on the aquarium circuit kicked just like it was supposed too.

Thank god!

The GFI tripped by having the cord dipping into the water? Or did water flow down the cord to the socket? The reason all the manuals recommend a 'drip loop' on your lines is so if water does run down the cords it will collect and drip off the cords below the outlet vs flow all the way down into the plug.

[XXFirefighter]

Umm do NOT use that method...
NOT COOL !
Not safe @ all !

[ellisz]

Keep in mind this was just thrown out there and I am not practicing it. The plug of the two cords was actually submerged. Freaked me out when I saw it but then I noticed that all the power was gone.

I talked to an electrician about it he said it would work but the flip side is if the GFI fails you have a dangerous electrical situation. He suggested not to do it.

I have had 2 floods so I am always looking for something to prevent it or help prevent it. In my previous set up, I had a 20 gal tank sitting in a 32 gal container. The container gave me a bit of peace of mind but I knew it would not catch it all.

Thanks

[grimlock3000]

If I put the cord on the floor behind the sump and it did happen to overflow, it would trip the GFI and kill all the pumps. Any negative effects to this as a failsafe to the main pump draining the tank?

This would be similar to rewing to tank outlets with super thin wiring. The wiring would not be able to carry enough current to kill you, instead it would just run the chance of starting a fire in the wall...

Anyway, they do make devices that turn off pumps if they get wet. I believe www.marinedepot.com sells them, I will check the catalog when I get home.

[Brad]

Rig up a float switch to kill power to the pumps in the event of unusual water levels. If the water level rises/falls beyond a certain point, something is wrong...shutdown.

This works too well for me. All it takes is a failure of my evaporative top off system to trigger it. So I've had a lot of false alarms, but I've never had a flood.

DON'T just wire the full voltage through the float switch. This is properly done by running low voltage through the float to a relay. The relay kicks out the high voltage when triggered by the low voltage from the float (basically, that's the definition of a relay)