Battery backup to prevent lighting from blowing circuit?

[55gallons]

I live in an apartment building and come home about every other day to find the circuit to my tank blown.

I hope someone can give me some ideas...I've had some close calls..

Sometimes when my lights switch on the initial startup blows the fuse. Would a battery backup fix this? If this would fix it Iwould lose the functionality of my gfi wall outlet I installed?

Anyone have ideas?

[dmo]

What kind of lighting setup do you have? Is it the breaker popping at the box or the gfci? It may be a better solution to reduce the load on that circuit.

[55gallons]

Thanks for the response. It's not the GFCI popping. It's the breaker. The thing is I don't want to reduce the load unless I have to....I'm very happy with my setup which includes:

Marineland T5: 2 actinic strips (wattage I can't recall....I'm at work right now), and 2 white strips (wattage can't recall)
and
Coral life unit.. 48" Coralife Aqualight Lunar 4x65watt w/Moon Lights

but it's constantly powering also... mag 5 sump pump, 3 maxijet 1200s, heater, and Tunze skimmer.

[dmo]

I don't have any experience with a battery backup, so I can't help there. The load from your tank doesn't seem exceptionally high, do you stagger your lighting so they don't all come on all at the same time? I'm also wondering if maybe there is some condensation getting into the fixture to possibly cause a short on initial startup.. Just a wild guess though.

Hopefully someone with more electrical knowledge will chime in.

[55gallons]

my lights do alternate. I have a very small corlife light on the sump and another of the same unit on the hang on refugium that turn off at the same time the t5s turn on and blow the breaker

[BeanAnimal]

Originally posted by 55gallons
Thanks for the response. It's not the GFCI popping. It's the breaker. The thing is I don't want to reduce the load unless I have to

YOU HAVE TO REDUCE THE LOAD. You have no choice. The breaker is doing its job and tripping due to an overload.

There is no wiggle room here, you are overloading the circuit long enough for it to trip. Continued tripping is going to weaken the breaker and it will trip sooner.

When ballastss and motors startup they draw many times their rated power. This is called "in-rush current". Breakers do not trip at their EXACT handle rating the exact moment that the rating is exceeded. They can handle short bursts of power that exceed the handle rating.

By code, you should not have a breaker loaded to more than 80% of its rated capacity. This "derating" helps to leave headroom for in-rush current.

Your sysmptoms indicate that you clearly have the circuit overloaded and no longer have enough headroom to accomodate the motors or ballasts starting.

[55gallons]

Wouldn't a battery backup allow the lights to pull there additional juice during initialization from it rather than the wall

[BeanAnimal]

In short, no.

The batteries in a UPS are not part of the circuit unless the mains power fails. Even in an "on-line" ups, the batteries are being charged and the DC bus powers the inverter.

You have an overloaded circuit. You need to reduce the load. Either eliminate some items or move then to another circuit.

[55gallons]

Thank you

[BeanAnimal]

Not a problem my friend

I wish I had more desirable answers for you.

[J-Burns]

You may try replacing the breaker that is tripping. As BeanAnimal said sometimes they get week and start tripping too soon. Get the same size rating that is there now- Probably 15 or 20 amps. You also will need to know who made your box in order to get a breaker that will fit. There is also a possibality that a piece of your equipment is going bad and tripping your breaker. You also may want to get an ammeter to check your current at the breaker 1st to see how many amps you are pulling.

[coryjones]

What about adding capacitors for the start up?

[A.T.T.R]

caps in AC lines are just filters.
for the most part.

what else is on that breaker.. cause i load mine a heck of alot more then that with no probloms.

[coryjones]

really because we use them all the time booster cap on ac with hard start compressors and it seems to do the trick. I load my 15amp breaker with 3 400w mh 2 maxi 1200 and fridge with no problems.

[H20ENG]

You must be sharing a breaker with the refrigerator, microwave, or similar. Like Bean said, you need to remove some of the load from that breaker- not neccesarily from the tank.

Map out your breakers and outlets. Then see if you can run an extension cord tot he tank so you are splitting the load.

The "hard start" cap will only work on motors, not T5s

[coryjones]

cool didn,t know i know my mh have caps on them.

[A.T.T.R]

mh only have the caps for power factor correction if i remember correctly?
i think i may be wrong tho where is bean when ya need him

[A.T.T.R]

btw caps on hvacs and fans and.. any motor is to allow a phase shift to start the motor. you ahve more then one winding to provide rotational force untill it starts.

[BeanAnimal]

Originally posted by A.T.T.R
mh only have the caps for power factor correction if i remember correctly?
i think i may be wrong tho where is bean when ya need him

As line voltage changes, the lamp current changes. The cap is used to provide a feedback loop to prevent the current changes (it is more complicated than that... but you got the 1 sentace explanation).

The secondary purpose is to make the ballast behave more like a resistive load (a.k.a PF correction).

[A.T.T.R]

ok well at least i wasnt 100 percent wrong lmao

[8BALL_99]

I'd see what else is on the circuit.. What you listed isn't enought to overload even a 15amp circuit. I'm not sure what else it could be but you might be lucky enough that there is another circuit by what ever else thats sharing that one with your tank.

Like bean said your only suppose to load them at 80% So even if you get it to stop tripping your so close its still probably over loaded.

[coryjones]

I now enough to do my job but if you had a short which it isn't hard with a tank of salt water and electricity and your breaker trips that breaker needs to be replaced most people reset them but one day i was bored and read info that came with a square d breaker and it says if it trip it needs to be replaced they are made to trip one time and reset until it can be replaced but i know no one does this.

[REEF-n-Chicago]

cory, are you sure this is true? I need to replace a few if so
Cant imagine this is the case though!

[hellssephiroth]

i am in no way telling you to do this ..... but i had problems because our apartment we are renting is wired dumber than anything ive seen in my life... living room, kitchen and bedroom are all on one breaker...... wow horrible. it had a 15amp breaker in it and i put in a 30 >< not safe really..... especially if u have older wiring thats why i have good insurance on all my stuff. another option would be to get a seperate breaker like 20 amp and see if u can find what wires go where in your house and put your fishtank on its own seperate breaker? thats what i should do but the landlord told me he would kick me out, should have never mentioned it. another thing is dont have a lot of stuff turn on all at one time take have lights / pumps and w/e else u have regulated turn on a few minutes apart.

[BeanAnimal]

Originally posted by hellssephiroth
it had a 15amp breaker in it and i put in a 30 >< not safe really.....

That is an understatement. It is irresponsible, negligent and stupid. You lived in an apartment, you overloaded a circuit and THEN disabled the fire protection for the circuit. If you caused a fire and killed people you would be 100% responsible.

another option

YOU may think that it is an option but it is not. Oversizing a breaker could/should land you in jail. In your own house, your own family... take it up with them. Then again what about the firefighters that put their lives on the line to save you and your family because you decided a 30A breaker was ok to use in place of a 15A breaker.

Worse, it was not YOUR own home, it was an apartment and other peoples families, shame on you for doing it, and offering it as an option to other people.

thats what i should do but the landlord told me he would kick me out

To be 100% truthful, your landlord should kick you out. If I can find his/her name I will certainly speed up that process.

Breakers are sized by code and wire size for a reason. If you are tripping the breaker, then upsizing it to your whim is not an option. It is not safe and it is not legal. It is an act of negligence and ignorance is not an excuse.

So you say "I am in no way telling you to do this..." and then give people advice that you KNOW is bad and/or deadly as an "option" and somehow think it is ok?

If I sound harsh it is because this is a very serious subject.