Warning!  Electrocution Hazard!

– Don’t put your hand in there!
– Don’t put your fish in there!

If you will have any electrical equipment touching the fish tank water (whether inside the aquarium itself, or inside an aquarium sump under your fish tank), aquarium equipment such as an aquarium water heater, fish tank water filter, protein skimmers, or aquarium water jets to circulate the water, then you should have a “Grounding Rod” somewhere in the same water to protect you, and your fish, from electricution!

Aquarium heaters can break, electrical cords can vibrate against aquarium rocks and other rough edges, rub through the electrical wire insulation, and come in contact with the water causing
an electrical hazard. Setting up a grounding rod is not difficult, and can save your life, and the life of your aquarium’s fish.

You can purchase a “Titanium” (Only Titanium!) bicycle wheel spoke from a bike shop. Bend it in half so that one side touches the other, but the ends don’t touch. In other words bend it so that
one side is much longer than the other side, but that the long side will always be in the water, even when cleaning the tank and removing half of the water out of the fish tank.

The Titanium spoke should look like a long “U” but with one side longer than the other. Solder, or weld, (or wind several times) an 18 Gauge electrical wire to the short side of the spoke.
The short side of the spoke should always remain out of the water so that the copper electrical wire won’t touch the water (copper will kill fish very quickly!), and then ground the other end of the electrical wire.

A good place to ground the electrical wire to would be a UPS ground lug. A UPS is a backup battery used to keep the fish tank equipment running even in case of a short power outage.