Electric current can come from surprising sources!

[James Croney]

Rarely I have come across a fish tank that gives a little tingly-electric feeling when I put my hands in. its especially noticeable on small cuts in the skin. Usually I just replace the heater, and it goes away. This lead me to believe that sometimes the heaters "go bad" and start to leak current into the water. Well, the current can find an easier route to ground thru my fingers than anything else in the glass tank.

One has really been throwing me for a loop though. I had changed the heaters multiple times chasing the issue. No heaters, no finger tingling. Put brand new heaters in, I get finger tingles. I check the ground plugs, i check everything I can think to check.

Turns out, the people who installed my electrical box put the grounding rod directly thru the sewer drain on the property! Like, they bullseyed it, so that the electrical ground was in current with the sewer water from the house. I imagine the ground rod passed current to the sewer water that then passed current onto the metal pipes that then came back into the tank. Again the 'best ground' to get to was my finger, since the house ground was 'shorted'. I do not know enough about electrical things to understand why that is the case, but its some data I wanted to share with the forum. As a last resort, check your electrical box grounding rods and if they come into contact with anything that comes into contact with the water!

Now that its repaired, no current comes to my fingers, even when I have a few cuts on them.

For context this is a aquaponics setup outside.

[lefty o]

one thing you can absolutely guarantee is that electricity will always take the path of least resistance.

[Bill]

I noticed the same with a 100 gallon tub that I used to use for breeding angels, it has a heater and circulating pump... not breeding anymore but I kept it for aged water when I do water changes in my tanks (easy to scoop buckets of pre-heated, dechlorinated aged water). It's not doing it any more, but I suspected it was the heater or the pump.