Flex Watt heat wrap

[Muni]

Just finished watching an Aquarium Co-Op video and he was in California touring the fish room of a woman that keeps bettas and a few other things in smaller tanks. 1-10 gallons. She is using Flex watt heat tape under them to keep them warm. Would like to discuss this idea a bit.

Have any of you ever used this stuff? The wattage is about 8 watts per foot for the 4 inch and 20 per for 12".

If we were to apply this to a larger tank like a 55 gallon. 4 feet at 20 watts per would be 80 watts. Not a ton of wattage but in a warm room would this be enough to warm or supplement a larger tank?

Is there a point of diminishing returns this would stop being effective?

I was wondering if you were to set your tank on top of rigid insulation with this wrap applied directly to the bottom of the tank it would be pretty effective for smaller tanks.


Here is a link to a vendor that sells the stuff. It lists the wattages. http://incubatorwarehouse.com/flex-watt-heat-tape.html

 

[Winfield92]

Applied to the bottom you would be fighting insulating substrate that would be working against you.

You say 80w is "Not a ton of wattage" but what really matters is how long it takes to get the water to the desired temperature.

You would have to connect it to some sort of control to maintain a constant temperature - the controller will dictate how long current is applied to the conductor, so the efficiency versus a normal aquarium heater would have to be compared to power consumed by both. The one advantage of the tape on a bare bottom aquarium would be that it is heating a larger area than an aquarium heater, which may help increase temperature faster. The lower output of the tape, though, means it is going to be working longer.

Most aquarium heaters have integrated control. You would be looking at power consumed by a rheostat and the tape to compare it to a $30 aquarium heater.

To answer your question - you could certainly use it. Doesn't seem like a bad idea at all for smaller tanks. Not sure I could justify it over a simple heater for anything relatively large.

 

[Muni]

Thanks for the input. When I said not a ton of watts I was looking at the calculators. For instance to warm my 60 gallon 10* above room temp takes about 233 watts apparently.

So the flex wrap is about 1/3 of that. But it has a larger contact area.

If anyone were to use that stuff it should definitely be used with some sort of temp controller. I have several ranco temp controllers from my beer brewing stuff that would be appropriate for this application. I was just trying to figure out if it was something worthwhile for anything larger than a small tank.