Who knows why people do what they do? Perhaps his build thread may answer.
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/posts/5306070/
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/posts/5306070/
Perfect example of wasted money!?!
- Thread starter Red_Man
- Start date
If your intention is not to bash, perhaps you should change the title of your thread.
It doesnt matter how many heaters you have.
They need always the same amount of energy to heat the water .
You can put 5 heaters in the sump or 2 with more power, it doesnt matter.
The only thing that is changing is the time they are switched on.
It is better to have for example 3 heaters with low wattage than 1 heater with high wattage.
When one heater fails you have the other two heaters and because of the low wattage you cant kill your fishes due to overheating when the big heater fails.
Just my two cents.
They need always the same amount of energy to heat the water .
You can put 5 heaters in the sump or 2 with more power, it doesnt matter.
The only thing that is changing is the time they are switched on.
It is better to have for example 3 heaters with low wattage than 1 heater with high wattage.
When one heater fails you have the other two heaters and because of the low wattage you cant kill your fishes due to overheating when the big heater fails.
Just my two cents.
Killer setup. One of my favorites here. Only thing I would have done was get the bioball up out of the water and put them in a tower. But with all that matrix it doesn't matter anyway. I wish I had the patience to do all the nice pipe work. Super clean
Hey Evan
Re: My filter; it's not perfect by any means, but it's been serving it's purpose for a few years now.
I'll explain some of the reasons for why I set it up the way I did...
Why not utilize the sump as a wet/dry filter?
The room the tank is in is unheated and temps where I live regularly dip into the 30s and sometimes into the mid 20's on cold winter nights. When air temps are that cold, a trickle filter acts like a giant chiller. Therefore, a submerged media sump was the most efficient option since I didn't want my heaters to be fighting against the cooling effect of a wet/dry trickle filter. Electricity where I live is really expensive, so I designed the filter retain as much heat as possible.
Why so many watts for the heater?
As mentioned above, the room the tank is in gets really cold; it's unheated. I actually went one winter just keeping goldfish to see how cold the tank would get and the water got down to 50F. That means the delta I am looking for my heaters to achieve is 25+ degrees. That's a big swing.
Heating large bodies of water requires A LOT of energy. If I remember correctly (I tested it out with a Kill-a-watt a few years ago), in the winter my heaters came on about 4 to 6 hours per day to maintain 76F, which equates to an average of about 350W of continuous energy into the water. Or to put it another way, the water was continuously losing 350W of heat (energy) per hour to the surrounding (cold) air. But if I were to simply buy a 350W heater, it would be on 100% of the time (during the winter- in the summer, I actually unplug the heaters). Aquarium heaters are not designed to run constantly; they are designed to cycle on for a short period of time and cycle off once the desired temperature is achieved. Overworking a heater is a surefire road to disaster. The truth is that I should probably have more than 1,800 watts. I haven't had an issues with any of the six 300W Eheims heaters. I would say the chance of failure if I were running only a 200W and a 150W (350W total) would be pretty high...the heaters would probably burnout.
The amount of energy to maintain my desired temperature (76F) would be the same if I were running a 350W heater 24/7 or if I ran a 3,500W heater that cycles "ON" for 2.4 hours per day (in both cases the result is 8.4KWHrs of energy per day). Malte81 explained this concept well in his post. .
What's up with the bio-balls being used incorrectly?
I bought the bio-balls off of a guy on craigslist for $40. It's about a 40G size hefty bag full. Initially I was going to run a trickle filter, but for the reasons mentioned above I changed my plans. I was left with two options for the bio-balls: 1.) Throw them in the sump (since I already had them) so that they provide more surface area for beneficial bacteria to grow on, or 2.) leave them in my garage (not use them altogether). Since I shot that video a few years back, I have actually removed the bio-balls because I grow out fry in the sump and the balls just took up too much swimming space and simply just got in the way. I've never had detectable NH3 readings, so the Pond Matrix and the Matala mats seem to provide enough surface area for nitrifying bacteria to handle the bio-load.
Why use schedule 80 plumbing?
The silly but truthful reason is that I liked the look of the grey sch 80 plumbing better than white sch 40 and it matched my fancy ball valves.
Why install ball valves on the drains since you are running basic durso standpipes?
I like being able to shut off flow to a particular sock when I am changing out the sock. Like Kendragon mentioned (what's up Ken!) they are an expensive luxury...2" true union ball valves are not cheap, but I like having them.
IMO, there isn't a holy grail of filters that is best for everyone. "All roads lead to Rome" however there are pros and cons to every type of filter. The key is to design one that fits the needs of your particular setup and execute on that design.
Looking forward to seeing your build.
-Alex
Re: My filter; it's not perfect by any means, but it's been serving it's purpose for a few years now.
I'll explain some of the reasons for why I set it up the way I did...
Why not utilize the sump as a wet/dry filter?
The room the tank is in is unheated and temps where I live regularly dip into the 30s and sometimes into the mid 20's on cold winter nights. When air temps are that cold, a trickle filter acts like a giant chiller. Therefore, a submerged media sump was the most efficient option since I didn't want my heaters to be fighting against the cooling effect of a wet/dry trickle filter. Electricity where I live is really expensive, so I designed the filter retain as much heat as possible.
Why so many watts for the heater?
As mentioned above, the room the tank is in gets really cold; it's unheated. I actually went one winter just keeping goldfish to see how cold the tank would get and the water got down to 50F. That means the delta I am looking for my heaters to achieve is 25+ degrees. That's a big swing.
Heating large bodies of water requires A LOT of energy. If I remember correctly (I tested it out with a Kill-a-watt a few years ago), in the winter my heaters came on about 4 to 6 hours per day to maintain 76F, which equates to an average of about 350W of continuous energy into the water. Or to put it another way, the water was continuously losing 350W of heat (energy) per hour to the surrounding (cold) air. But if I were to simply buy a 350W heater, it would be on 100% of the time (during the winter- in the summer, I actually unplug the heaters). Aquarium heaters are not designed to run constantly; they are designed to cycle on for a short period of time and cycle off once the desired temperature is achieved. Overworking a heater is a surefire road to disaster. The truth is that I should probably have more than 1,800 watts. I haven't had an issues with any of the six 300W Eheims heaters. I would say the chance of failure if I were running only a 200W and a 150W (350W total) would be pretty high...the heaters would probably burnout.
The amount of energy to maintain my desired temperature (76F) would be the same if I were running a 350W heater 24/7 or if I ran a 3,500W heater that cycles "ON" for 2.4 hours per day (in both cases the result is 8.4KWHrs of energy per day). Malte81 explained this concept well in his post. .
What's up with the bio-balls being used incorrectly?
I bought the bio-balls off of a guy on craigslist for $40. It's about a 40G size hefty bag full. Initially I was going to run a trickle filter, but for the reasons mentioned above I changed my plans. I was left with two options for the bio-balls: 1.) Throw them in the sump (since I already had them) so that they provide more surface area for beneficial bacteria to grow on, or 2.) leave them in my garage (not use them altogether). Since I shot that video a few years back, I have actually removed the bio-balls because I grow out fry in the sump and the balls just took up too much swimming space and simply just got in the way. I've never had detectable NH3 readings, so the Pond Matrix and the Matala mats seem to provide enough surface area for nitrifying bacteria to handle the bio-load.
Why use schedule 80 plumbing?
The silly but truthful reason is that I liked the look of the grey sch 80 plumbing better than white sch 40 and it matched my fancy ball valves.
Why install ball valves on the drains since you are running basic durso standpipes?
I like being able to shut off flow to a particular sock when I am changing out the sock. Like Kendragon mentioned (what's up Ken!) they are an expensive luxury...2" true union ball valves are not cheap, but I like having them.
IMO, there isn't a holy grail of filters that is best for everyone. "All roads lead to Rome" however there are pros and cons to every type of filter. The key is to design one that fits the needs of your particular setup and execute on that design.
Looking forward to seeing your build.
-Alex
