Apex or power company problem

[mpsteve]

So I wake up this morning and I hear slurping come from down stairs where my 120g tank is. So I go down stairs and see the tank is missing about 8 inches of water.(that's the lowest it can drain) so I go down into the basement and my apex db8 that has my return pump and heaters on it had tripped the gfci outlet. I reset it and everything is fine.

So I checked my apex fusion to see what happened and saw that it was saying my temp was 70.x. So I move on to the amperage for that db8 which normally runs at 14 amps when both heaters are on(finnex 500w x2) I see that for a couple hours my amps were hitting 50 and at one point hit 82.5.

What would cause my amps to bounce off the charts like this. I have had the apex going for over a year now and I haven't seen this before. Pictures below

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[Jim Tansey]

Well first off your graph shows a significant time period when you are drawing over 35 amps which is impossible with household wiring, and I can't see any way the power company could cause this. I think you will find an intermittent short in a piece of equipment, maybe the heater.

Jim

 

[mpsteve]

The apex db8 should trip at 20amps. It shows a couple hours above 20amps very strange. Temp is up to 76.2 now so it is t raising to fast which is good. I still hope nothing goes into shock or starts to melt. I'll know when I get home tonight I guess. 35amps is possible since I have a 200amp panel but the circuit is only a 20amp breaker. I'm an electrician so it's got me scratching my head

 

[this is me]

I guess Jim's point is that a typical household wiring is 12/2 or might even be 14/2. For a 14 guage wire, recommended current handling is 15Amps. On a 12 gauge wire, it is 20Amps. I'm skeptical that these wires can handle 80+ Amps without any damage to the wiring.
http://encorewire.com/wp-content/uploads/amp voltage.pdf
The fact that your main panel is 200amps has nothing to do with this. It's 200Amps into the panel from the street but a typical breaker run is 20Amps...Your whole house might be able to draw 200Amps but none of a single room can draw that much at once.
Also, raising your temps so fast is probably not a good idea either...But who knows...

 

[wpeterson]

+1 for broken/shorting heaters, though. I wouldn't stick my hand in the sump until you check/replace them without turning the power off.

 

[Spudsly]

Yeah I wanted to come place my money on heaters, although it's hard to understand all the data even if that is correct.

 

[mpsteve]

12/2 can have upwards of 200 amps on it. Might be for only 5 seconds till the breaker trips but the full amps can go onto 12/2 wire. I have seen a seized ac compressor cause a 115 amp spike on a 20amp breaker. And surprisingly the breaker does its job and holds the amps for 3-5 seconds the way it was designed before it trips. The problem I see here is the breaker allowing this circuit to run higher amps then rated for longer then 3-5 seconds which the breaker does allow for surges for when motors and compressors first turn on. But holding the current that high for hours has me scratching my head. I thought the db8 would trip at 15 amps. Gfci should trip right when there is a ground fault error, and breaker should trip with amps higher then rated for longer then 3-5 seconds. No way all three failed for hours. Something funny is happening. Time to call apex as it happened again while at work and I had to leave work so my house won't Burn down

 

[this is me]

But holding the current that high for hours has me scratching my head. I thought the db8 would trip at 15 amps.

You've already answered your own question right there. And as we've discussed over the phone, I never said anything about max instantaneous current handling of the wire. And I highly doubt the Apex is fast enough to measure that. All I'm saying is, your wire is not recommended for the amount of current your Apex is showing. Which mean, you house is either on fire right now or it's just an Apex defect!

 

[dz6t]

I will bet on Apex defect.

 

[mpsteve]

So I switched everything over to a diff eb8 and so far so good

 

[EddieM]

I had the same exact thing happen to me 2 days ago, woke up to my Fusion texting me and a silent tank. Unfortunately the skimmer was on a different circuit and kept running while the sump filled, spewing water all over my floor. It turned out one of my titanium heaters had cracked around the seal and was apparently leaking voltage. As it shorted it caused spikes (drawing over 55 amps) before it tripped the circuit. Apparently while it tripped the circuit, it also fused the eb8 socket. The other 7 work fine, but the one that the heater was plugged in to is stuck in the on position. Where one EB8 kept running, the other was still providing readings even though the circuit had tripped. My skimmer should have shut off if the return pump was off (If Outlet Return_B6 = OFF Then OFF), but the Apex showed the pump still on even though the circuit was tripped. I love technology until it stops working, then you realize how vulnerable you are. I think I'm going to buy a spare EB8 just to have on hand for emergencies.

 

[mpsteve]

I inspected electrically and visually all items on that eb8 before putting them on my other eb8 and they are fine. It has been more then a few hours and no spikes on my other eb8 so it might appear I have a bad eb8

 

[reefkeeper2]

Today at at 4:10 pm my apex registered 82.4 amps on an EB8 that normally draws only 1-2 amps. Looks like some kind of cloud problem?

 

[mpsteve]

Idk it's been fine since I switched everything to a different eb8. Neptune systems gave me a corrective action to try and I'll do it tomorrow and test out the eb8 Sunday while I'm home all day. Almost got the tank back up to 80. It's at 79.5 only took 8 hours which isn't a bad thing. Nothing is rtn/stn. All polyps are still out and fish are eating great

 

[nemodan]

I hope this never happens to me. I will be buying an overnight new EB8. If I have to do all what Neptune system wrote I am sure I will do it wrong.

 

[mpsteve]

So everything is still good so I am going to rma the bad eb8

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[jdeb101]

Are you really drawing 13.5a and is that normal for you? Seem's a bit too close to 15a for comfort for me!

So everything is still good so I am going to rma the bad eb8

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[mpsteve]

Yes I am. I had to put my two 500w heaters on my eb8 that has everything else on it till I get me new eb8