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Flexwatt electrifying foil... how so?
Hey... So I'm setting up my baby with her own mansion. I got a sweet deal on a 7'x2'x2.5' aquarium and decided to go ahead and get it. But that's not the problem... the problem is this:
I am heating the enclosure with flexwatt heat tape on about 2/5 of the bottom of the tank. I hooked the wires with the plugs to the 11" flexwatt using the clip set with the insulating covers. Then I covered both open ends of the coper strip that runs down the flaxwatt with electrical tape. Finally I attached the whole thing to the bottom of my aquarium with Nashua 324a foil tape as I read somewhere that this helps to reflect more of the heat upwards and spread the heat out well. The problem... the whole foil thing attached to the bottom of my aquarium becomes electrified when I plug in the flexwatt.... which could be useful if my aquarium were being attacked by a giant squid... but otherwise anoying and dangerous. What's worse is that I can't figure out where the current is escaping from the heat tape and coming in contact with the foil tape. After reading around I realize that I should have used aluminum foil tape to attach the heat tape to the aquarium because it doesn't conduct electricity, but I still would like to know how the electrical current is coming in contact with the flexwatt. Any ideas? Am I being extrordinarily obtuse? Lemme know.
Herpocrite.
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