how many circuit breakers?

[trido]

I'm getting ready to head back to Seattle to start the fish tank/ laundry room.
Oh, Ya, I live in the San Fransico area and cant move into my new house until next June.
I am pretty sure i know what i need to do for all of my plumbing now (thanks for the help) and I thought i knew what i wanted to do about the electrical. Simply run two new 20 amp circuits to 4 or 6 electrical outlets.
Now, after browsing the forums and seeing alot of the pics all of the old pros have done (La Lawman, Louey, Cirsch to name a few). Im not so sure about that. I can clearly see that off and on swithces for at least some of the componenets must be a real nice luxury. I want that too. I can personally guarantee you that i will be tearing sheetrock out and doing it later if i dont. Im a contracter, I can't help it.
To make a long story short. Can you tell me what i should put on light switches?

 

[trido]

Oh by the way

90 Gallon 48"x18"x24"
2) 250 hamilton halide pendants
2) 48" HO actinics
ASM G-3 skimmer
Probably 2 450 gallon dry mount pumps?

25 gallon sump and 20 gallon refugium
6 stage RO/DI 125 GPD filter

 

[Anonymous]

If you have the time and money and energy, put everything on switches, in fact, put those switched receptacles in, then you don't have to bugger around with plugging and unplugging cords like I did last night while I was doing a water change...


Your lights should be on timers, as well as your fans

I would put your pumps on switches so they are easy to turn off during cleaning or feedings.

That's probably it.

 

[LA-Lawman]

I think there are two was to handle switching... in wall switches and at the pump... (power strip)

I had the luxury of ripping drywall... it is great to have a control box to go to. I wish it was neater, but it works....

I have a buddy who had three outlets to power his whole tank.... he rigged his circulation pumps to one strip, lighting to another and powerheads to another.... so at any given time he can control them...

I believe that the only way to have timers is to have them in-wall or hardlined in... Leviton makes a great timer.... (better than the intermatic)

another option i am starting to see is a DJ control box. it is a rack mounted type piece with 10 or so switches (you can get them with as little as 5)
they have a 20AMP rating... one plug to the wall and the rest to the control box. 1 switch runs 1 outlet. they are backlit with colors so t makes it easy to group them....(removable lenses)

if you rip drywall use good insulation.... keps things quiet.

hope this helps

 

[Anonymous]

Switches are nice. I only used on for the light underneath my stand, but it would be nice to have them on all of the outlets that pumps are plugged into.

Mine are all surface mounted outlets, so adding swithces would be easy. Just by a new plate and add the switch.

As for how many circuits to run, I'd run exta's just to be sure.

I ran two dedicated circuits to my olds 75G, and that was plenty. If you ran 4 to your 90, you'd be good to go.

I put a load center in for my 300G tank, and still only used 5 circuits. Wait, maybe it was 6 circuits.

Good luck!

Louey

 

[cjsrch]

when i was doing my electrical we found that all the elecric to the house passed over head. we split off all those line ( tank shares breakers with every room in the house)

but instead of switches im using GFI . for two reasons one. for the protection and 2 if i wanna turn somthing off i can just push the test button on the gfi

 

[Anonymous]

IIRC it is not a good idea to use the test button as a switch. I think it wears it down over time.

 

[cjsrch]

your suppose to test once a month with gfi. and that works out to how often i turn off my equitment. ^^

those dj power things are cool....... but expensive