You would NOT have been shocked if you DID NOT have the ground probe in the first place! You would not have been shocked if you used GFI protection AND the ground probe. You die because you did not have GFI protection. Current travels from your neck, through your arm, into the water and then to the ground probe. You then put your arm into the tank and as you lean in to scrape algae, your neck touches the ENERGIZED reflector. You touch the reflector while wearing rubber shoes and do not get shocked, because there is no path to ground.

The reflector does not pass current because it has no path to ground. You have a reflector that has become energized due to a fault. Your choice at installation.Ĭan you explain your theory, I dont understand and I am an electrician.Ī grounding probe will work by itself, it dosent need a GFI to 'work properly'.Ī ground probe does not need a GFI to 'work' it needs a GFI to work safely.Īs I stated above, take a very simple scenario where you have a ground probe in your tank and NO GFI protection. GFI outlets can be wired so the rest of the circuit is also GFI protected or only the GFI outlet is protected. Just wondering if I should replace the other outlet too. Well I've heard that when you connect a gfci unit that all outlets on that circuit are now gfi protected. Wearing rubber soled shoes is not an acceptable solution. If you're tank is tripping the GFI with a ground probe installed take that as a warning that something is wrong. You need to figure out where your tank is leaking current and fix the problem. I just wear rubber soled shoes to be on the safe side if I know I am going to be working in it. No harm comes to the inhabitants as the tank is not grounded thus there is no path for current to flow. It is on a GFI, but no grounding probe, as this would result in erratic trips of the GFI. My tank leaks voltage from a multitude of sources, some of which appears to be induced. Like bean said, gfi w/out grounding probe is bad news.

Faceless gfci receptacle with ct