Drip System - Tie Into Cold Supply Or Use Mixing / Tempering Valve?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
I use warm. Prolly mid 70s. It fluctuates. I have a valve in my manifold right after the carbon filters that I'll kick on for a while before setting temps otherwise it was an ordeal as the temp takes so long to change with the flow being so low through a normal drip system that it's very time consuming and frustrating to set.

This helps me tremendously in the winter as with no drip it took 6 heaters to do the same temp as 2 and the warm drip. Even then when it got really cold the heaters had a hard time keeping up. There's no ducts in my basement where my big tank and filtration is.

This valve sounds worth looking into in my opinion. If this valve replaces 10+ heaters in the entire house isn't that worth the power they'd consume?

Another bonus to warm drips is heating the tank in power outages if you have a gas hot water heater. It's life support. This has come in handy for me on several ocasions.
 
I dripped cold water, but I do have the main line tee off to a hot water system with a valve. In the summer and spring, I just drip straight cold. During the freezing weather, I open the hot water valve about 1/4 to prevent the line from freezing (it runs through the attic) and prevents the dripping water to be very cold. I dripped 12 gallon per hour in a 650 gallon system. You can dump 12 galllon of ice into the tank and it won't made a dent.

I never run heater, the house ambient temp controls the tank temp.

stan
 
Thanks for all the info. Seems like I can not go wrong either way to be honest. Luckily we do not loose power here very often and I have a gas generator ready to go with a transfer switch if needed....have lost it for a total of about 10 minutes in 5 years time - knock on wood.

My water heater is a good 50 feet from where the tank is located so with the low flow rate seems like just cold might be the best solution but will look into those valves more.
 
cjfrontlovr said:
my cold water is 50-60 degrees in the winter..cant hardly use that as a drip therefore, i did some research and found this valve..found a used one on ebay for less than half price.worth the piece of mind for me.
http://www.hassmfg.com/search.pl/1286635348-91450?keyword=1092
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do you know this as a fact that you cant use 50-60 degree water for a drip? i dont know where "in the fish room" is but i can tell you in WA water temps during winter get pretty damn cold, well below 50, and despite keeping my tanks in the garage never had a problem.
 
i know for a fact i wont do it in any of MY tanks..you do as you want.my tanks are kept at 82 degrees without heaters.using natural gas and a mixing valve is what i do.
 
our water gets in the 50's in the winter and even if i drip 200 gal per day my heaters still dont come on

just keep your house temp at about 74 degrees
 
It all really depends on how much you drip per hour basis and how long do you drip per day.

I keep my tank to the house ambient temp. My house temp is set from 73-78 degrees and the tank ranges from 75-80 ish within 24 hour period (I run aqua controller that datalog temp during the day). I drip 12 gal per hour for 10 hours.

There was a time when my ac went out after a lighting strike very near the ac unit, the house temp gets over 84 degrees, I dumped about 20 lbs of ice at once and the temp only dropped .5 degree (in a 650 gallon system). My point is that it takes A LOT of cold water to create a major swing in any system.

Fish can handle temp swing as long as it's done gradually. In the wild, the water system goes from 60-70 ish in the morning and night and can go as high as 90 degrees or hotter in the peak of the day.

Stan
 
Well I guess this brings up another question. How many of your guys drip 24 hours a day vs a certain pair of the day say 10-12 hours? I can see the benefits of both ways.
 
tanglovers said:
Well I guess this brings up another question. How many of your guys drip 24 hours a day vs a certain pair of the day say 10-12 hours? I can see the benefits of both ways.
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I only drip for 10 hours a day to minimize risk of "something had gone wrong" while the house is empty. In the summer, I set the timer to turn the valve on to drip from Noon until 10 PM. In case of a mishap, I'll only have to deal with 60 gallons of water when I get home at 5 PM :) Plus dripping through the day during the summer helps add cool freshwater since we set the t-stat for the house at 78 deg
 
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