Grounded

[Chameleon Bob]

How important is a grounding probe? What is the overall affect of not having one?

[gregony]

Depends on if you're running Rio power heads or not

[Chameleon Bob]

HAhA I'm running a Rio 600 on my skimmer. Guess I need one

[Bloodydecks]

Depends on if you're running Rio power heads or not

so true!

[Chameleon Bob]

Well I got a question now, where should this ground be? In the sump with the skimmer or in the display? When the tank is running there shouldn't be a break in the water column so really it shouldn't matter, but I could be missing something.

[gregony]

Well, I've never used a ground probe in an aquarium, but from what I remember from my cutting edge technical education, saltwater is a conductor, albeit a poor one. In other words, it actually has a fairly high resistance compared to say ... metal. So for the ground probe to have maximum effect it would need to be close to the source of the electricity that is entering the tank. If you're putting in the ground probe to protect things in the display tank, in the event that something catastrophic should happen, then obviously the probe would need to go into the tank. And all urban legends aside, the water flowing into and out of the sump is not continuous enought to rely on making a good conductive path. Personally, I don't think you need a ground probe. Electricity in water is unpredictable and adding a ground probe may not give you the protection you think you will be getting. You would be better off with a GFCI outlet.