SKIMMER PUMPS

[Tammy Schroder]

I HAVE OWNED 2 PUMPS IN THE PAST TWO YEARS THEY WERE BOTH AQUA PUMPS BY CATALINA BOTH WERE CA-3000 HAS ANYONE HAD PROBLEMS WITH THESE PUMPS? MINE KEEP BURNING UP AND BLOWING FUSES IN THE HOUSE.

[Condiman]

I is possible that your pumps may be taking out more watts then your breaker can handle. What do you all have plugged in to your outlet for the tank? Is it all on one. An option you could do is run your pumps to another outlet that is on a different breaker. I am not sure if you can up the breaker size but I am not an electrition so maybe someone else can pop in and help.

[Paidbychrist0825]

i m not an electrician, but science can help here.
Breakers are basically the valves in an electric curcuit. the valve only lets so much through, right? right. Teh breaker lets only the amount of current the wire can SAFELY carry through, once the wire is carrying too much, it pops, and opens the circuit. if you were to up the breaker, the wires might get hot, catch on fire, and burn the house down.

Now what you could do, is find an electrician, become friends with him, and have him run a dedicated circuit to your tank site. Thats what i will probly do(ill skip the find electrician part, uncle is an electrician :) )

[nbaker]

I comming in way late on this. But what the heck.. Most houses that are built to code down here in Texas anyway, are wired to run up to 20 amp circuits, even though they are usually fitted with 15 amp breakers and jacks. Now from 20 amps up it's usually going to jump to 30 amps, in most applications (there are less than 30). A 30 amp circuit would require two dedicated wires from your box to the plug, which usually means having to add wires to the existing circuit. My suggestion is to uses a surge strip that has a fault detector and load breaker, this will usually trip first and then you can trully tell you have a circuit problem from the jack, and if only the skimmer to the surge strip you can trully pin it on the pump. Jumping from a 15amp to a 20 amp circuit should not be a problem, how ever not only will you need a 20 breaker but replace the jacks as well. if you go more than 20 find a electrician. I know you've probably already solved this, I'm just hoping to help the next guy. I'm not a electrican, just a handyman when it come to this sort of stuff around my house.

[shawnz28]

I have found from experiance these are not the most reliable pump out there. If you need one like it look at getting a CAP instead of a CA or a Rio