[DeTomaso] NPC - electric motors

[Will Kooiman]

No Pantera content, but I hope you guys can help - especially the electrical
engineers.

 

When the hurricane hit the Houston area last September, we were without
electricity for about a week.  Our neighbor had a generator, so we used it
to keep our aquarium alive.

 

About a week after electricity came back, we started popping breakers - just
the breaker with the aquarium pump.

 

At first, it would only pop when the lights and chiller were both on.  After
a while, it would pop if I plugged it in with anything else running.  We ran
it for quite a while with an extension chord to an outlet on another
breaker.  Right now, we're using the protein skimmer pump for circulation.
It doesn't pop breakers, but it doesn't really circulate the water enough.

 

Is there a chance that the generator sent dirty electricity to the pump and
burned it up?  It still works, but it seems to be pulling a lot more
current.  How do you measure household current?

 

This is a large tank - about 450 gallons.  The main circulation pump is not
small (too lazy to look at 1am).  I don't want to buy a $300 pump if I don't
need it.

 

NPC, but at least I didn't start another cooling or aerodynamics thread.