Heating large tanks

kzimmerman

Piranha
MFK Member
Mar 18, 2009
876
203
76
delmar md
So i'm in the process of building a 450g tank, 8' long, 3' wide and 30" tall. How do people go about heating tanks of this size? It's a plywood tank, and I was going to build some insulation into it, but was just wondering what the options for a heater were.
Thanks!
 

jsodwi

Blue Tier VIP
MFK Member
Jul 9, 2005
2,738
692
425
south of heaven
I use 4-300watt visi therm heaters with a Ranco temp controller on my 750g. It's acrylic and in my living room so I never have temperature problems
 

aldiaz33

Blue Tier VIP
MFK Member
Jun 19, 2007
2,312
214
296
Bay Area
As long as the room the tank is in stays above 55F, you should be fine following the 3 watts per gallon rule.

Keep in mind that you should try not to run more than 75% of the max load on any circuit. What that means is that if you add up every electric device that is on the same circuit, you shouldn't exceed 1350 watts on a 15 amp circuit and 1800 watts on a 20 amp circuit.

So if you have a 15 amp circuit, the only thing you should plug into it is the heaters (you'd need to run pumps, lights etc on a different circuit).

This is pretty serious stuff...an overloaded circuit can lead to fire. Ideally, it would just trip your breaker, but there is a real risk of causing a fire.

I researched heaters for quite a while and I decided to use basically the same setup as Johnny. I'm using six 300W Eheim Jagers on a Ranco Temperature controller on my 770G.

A few months ago I noticed burn marks on the receptacle I had my Ranco controller plugged into. It was a 20 Amp circuit, so I should have been fine, but the receptable was only rater for 15amps (hence the burn marks). I upgraded it to 20 amps and all is good now.

I ordered my controller from Jehmco (they sell rebranded Ranco temp controllers). I would suggest going with four 300W Eheim Jagers and ETCI-1R. Mouse over and click on the links to go to Jehmco's website.

Good luck!
 

kzimmerman

Piranha
MFK Member
Mar 18, 2009
876
203
76
delmar md
Awesome, thanks guys!
Kurt
 
zoomed.com
hikariusa.com
aqaimports.com
Store