1000 gallon aquarium heating?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Hey Steve, but you were absolutely right about Jehmco. That's actually where I bought my Ranco temp controller. They have a really good write-up about the benefits of using a controller on their site (if interested, scroll down to the bottom of the following webpage): http://www.jehmco.com/html/temperature_controller.html

250kWhrs isn't too bad if you are paying the national average for eletricity ($0.12k per kWhrs), but at that time PG&E was raping high electricity users in the Bay Area with a top tier rate of something like $0.47, so instead of it being $30, it was closer to $115. Thankfully rates have come down; they aren't penalizing higher users as much as they used to.

I have heard that rates in the far Northwest are really low, so it may be really cheap to run electric heaters.

The suggestion to use the Kill-o-watt device to test things out on the current system is a good one. It's rated for up to to 1,875 watts, but I went through 3 of them (fried them) testing my 1,800 watt heater setup. They are really cool, but for anyone running anything more than 1,500 watts, I wouldn't bother using them to test things out.
 
Hey Steve, but you were absolutely right about Jehmco. That's actually where I bought my Ranco temp controller. They have a really good write-up about the benefits of using a controller on their site (if interested, scroll down to the bottom of the following webpage): http://www.jehmco.com/html/temperature_controller.html

250kWhrs isn't too bad if you are paying the national average for eletricity ($0.12k per kWhrs), but at that time PG&E was raping high electricity users in the Bay Area with a top tier rate of something like $0.47, so instead of it being $30, it was closer to $115. Thankfully rates have come down; they aren't penalizing higher users as much as they used to.

I have heard that rates in the far Northwest are really low, so it may be really cheap to run electric heaters.

The suggestion to use the Kill-o-watt device to test things out on the current system is a good one. It's rated for up to to 1,875 watts, but I went through 3 of them (fried them) testing my 1,800 watt heater setup. They are really cool, but for anyone running anything more than 1,500 watts, I wouldn't bother using them to test things out.
 
Uggh. I didn’t realize the Bay Area was so pricy. Years ago we were paying about 6.5-7.5 cents a kWh in the northwest. I moved to Hawaii and watch that pop up to about 50 cents by the time we moved back. It’s cheap again now, although not as cheap as 20-25 years ago.
 
badassissimo said:
I would love to do this but will this be possible with a saltwater tank? I'm planning to build a large plywood tank as a reef tank for my wife. I don't know that stainless steel will do well with saltwater.
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There would not be stainless involved, though you are correct, if there was you'd want to keep it out of the water. The only thing that goes in the tank water is a coil of pex which will be fine in saltwater.
 
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The water from the hotwater heater never touches tank water. If your hot water heater is gas then it will save you money. I had it on my salt system dropped about 40 bucks a month avg. The pex and pump are the expensive parts. If you have a controller then just about any closed loop high volume lower pressure pump will work.
 
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I was thinking of switch my drip from cold to heater via my water heater. Aren’t you guys worried that using the water heater significantly will reduce its life? I know it’s cheaper to run on a monthly basis but if it reduces the heater life, that is a big expense.
 
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