big heaters in big tanks with sumps neccessary?????

[fishman09]

im running a 240 gallon and a 150 gallon on a single 30 gallon sump that while running averages around 7 gallons in the sump and im running a single jager 300 watt and it does a great job and keeps both tanks around 79 with it set at 81. so because its heating a small amount of water at a time in the sump with the proper turnover, which im only running 3x turnover on both tanks, this eliminates my need for a massive heater or having to run multiples saving electric costs on large tanks. so in the end im running an almost 400 gallon system on a single 300 watt jager.

 

[aldiaz33]

Heat into your system is heat into the system so all else being equal, your turnover rate should not really matter.

If your tank is well insulated and the air temp in your room is not much different than your tank temp, then you might be ok, but if you notice that your heater is always on, I would be worried as they are not supposed to cycle on for long periods.

My system is roughly 800G. I am running 1,800 watts to heat the tank. The heaters come on for about 3 hours every day, or put another way, they are on 12.5% of the time. This means if I had a heater that was on 24/7, I could get away with using only 240 watts of constant heat. Is that a good idea? Probably not. The heater will be overworked and much more likely to crap out on me.

Whether or not I use an 1,800 watt heater that's on for only 3 hrs per day or a 240 watt heater that's on 24 hrs per day, the amount of energy into the system to maintain the temperature will be the same. By using 1,800 watts, when the heaters come on, the temperature quickly rises to the desired temp and the heaters turn off. If I were to use a 240 watt heater, the heater would constantly be on, adding just enough heat to the tank to replace the heat lost.

PS- Jagers are solid...my 1,800 watts is from (6) 300W Jagers.

 

[boldtogether]

^^^FINALLY I SEE SOMEONE GETS THIS CONCEPT!!!^^^
jAGER rocks.

 

[Meyjeffery]

I want to know what happens when you do a water change and temp of water is 5-6 degrees cooler, I have a 240g with a 75g sump, 30g in all the time. My pump and lights keep my system at about 74 so my heater is for higher like now when adding new fish and doing water changes with 65 degree water, never takes more than 2 hours to get to temp, what does yours take 2 days?

 

[fishman09]

I want to know what happens when you do a water change and temp of water is 5-6 degrees cooler, I have a 240g with a 75g sump, 30g in all the time. My pump and lights keep my system at about 74 so my heater is for higher like now when adding new fish and doing water changes with 65 degree water, never takes more than 2 hours to get to temp, what does yours take 2 days?

mine temps immediatly after a water chgage as i add water to the same temperature and if it does drop a couple degrees its back up in a matter of a couple hours

 

[sazhar]

I like multiple heaters in my sump for a couple reasons. I have 3 300W heaters in my 45 gallon sump for my 240 gallon tank. I keep pbass and keep my tank on the warmer side around 85 degrees. The first reason is the one stated above. I don't want to wear out my heaters, so I would rather have 2 or three on for a short period of time than one on for long periods of time. The second reason is that if a heater malfunctions there is a backup. Obviously you want a backup if one stops working, but I also found out first hand it is better to have multiple smaller heaters in case one of the heaters keeps heating. I had one 300W heater in the sump of my 120 gallon tank. The heater malfunctioned while I was away one weekend and brought the temp of the tank to over 100 degrees, killing two of my dats. After that I used two 150 watt heaters so that if a heater malfunctions on or off, it will not do as much harm to my fish. The third reason is the fact that sh*** happens. My furnace went out in January and it took two and half days to get the parts needed to repair it. During that time temp in my house got down to 47 degrees. Yet the lowest I saw my tank was 83 degrees. If I had only one 300W heater it would have been a much lower temp and the heater would have been on 24/7. So I would suggest placing another heater in your sump just to cover yourself.

 

[frickr]

a heater at x amount of watts will only produce y amount of heat. the convsion factor for that is 1 watt = 3.41 btu's per hour. a btu is the amount of heat required to heat a pound of water 1 degree. so a gallon equals 8.34 pounds approximately. so 8.34 btu's to raise one gallon of water one degree. 8.34btu/3.41btu/h=2.44 hours for 1 watt to raise the temp 1 degree. no matter how many watts, the heating stays consistent, just if you add more watts of heat, you will be able to heat the water more rapidly, or a larger volume of water quicker. but in the end it will require the exact same wattage to heat the same volume of water x amount of degrees.