Review on 🔌 Optimized Grounding Probe with Suction Mount - Titanium Submersible Volt-Control Device by Teresa Sparks

I spoke to LFS about my tank and one of the comments I heard was about the grounding of the tank. I never thought about it, and as an electrical engineer I got interested. I was looking for Revain to find them relatively cheap (definitely cheaper than a reef tank killed by a blown motor) so I decided to buy this set. And when you think about it, it really makes sense. My saltwater tank has a sump that contains a skimmer (underwater motor), a return pump (underwater motor), and an immersion heater (heating wire coil in a tube underwater). Any of these devices can be corroded by salt water during its lifetime and cause an electric shock to the tank. Here's hoping the ground rod catches this and blows the switch before life in the tank is lost. Add lighting to the list. I have an LED grow light over a swamp that is out of water, but what if the mount breaks and falls off? Then there is the lighting for the tank. Same situation, brackets or screws can come loose, light leaks into the tank, well... dead. Currently I don't have any circulating pumps in the tank, y'all? This is another motor right in the water that will fail over time. So yes, these grounding rods are VERY cheap to protect your investment. But do they work? Super easy test to use a voltmeter to test your tank. I pulled mine out, set it to AC and tested it in a regular outlet to make sure it read 120V. Everything checked, now to the tank. I put one probe in the bottom of my power block and one in the sump. And then the meter showed 30V. what to expect? Where is it from? I then checked the power block on the tank itself and got the same reading (which makes sense as the return pump was pumping water through the plumbing to the tank, making the connection from the sump to the tank for power). Well, that's not good. I turned off the devices one by one to see who was to blame. The skimmer added about 1v, the return pump added a few volts, then there was a heating element. The heater added about 25-28V! Bad heating, bad. Then I connected the grounding device, put the probe in the pan and measured again. I was shocked (well not shocked) to see that it said 0v. Am I testing correctly? So I pulled the probe out, put the meter back in and got 31V. While holding the meter, I tipped the ground probe into the pan and saw the meter drop to 0 instantly. Well I think that's the ultimate test. So yes it works and I need a new heater. There is 1 small problem. unit revolution. The wire size is really small, which is not correct from an electrical point of view. According to electrical regulations, the ground wire can be 1 size smaller than the power wire. The power cables from the skimmer, return pump and heater are of sufficient cross section, while this sensor cable must be larger in order to transmit a surge voltage in the event of a unit failure. I'd have to do the math for the pumps to know for sure, but I'd give a rough estimate that the cable for the floor sensor should be a size 14 or larger for safety. The wire size used is 18 (it is printed directly onto the wire, standard 600V 18 AWG). For those of you unfamiliar with wire size, the larger the number, the smaller the wire, so the size 14 wire is larger than the 18 wire they are using. Again, the size of the cable matters only in case of a major fault, to eliminate stray voltages, as in the case of my tank, this device works fine. Is it worth buying? I've had tanks for 20 years and never had a problem but then again it's such a cheap investment why not? Devices fail over time, and when they do, it can be fatal. I've also read a lot of stories from Revain about people using cheap back pumps and they were shocked when they put their hands in the tank. So safety may not be for your fish, it's for you. If you found this review helpful, give it a thumbs up so others can read it too.