Gas heater for my 550 gal

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Boydo

Boydo

Gambusia
MFK Member
May 17, 2006
666
2
18
Alberta, Canada
www.shineaquatics.ca
I was planning on setting an aqua tankless water heater( natural gas) to heat my 550 gal as electricity is very expensive here. I was goning to use the same heat controller that I use now on 1000w T heater. This was gonig to turn on a pump that would circulate water to the gas heater....when the heater see's flow it turns on and heats the water to a set temp returning to the tank - until the flow stops( controller satisfied and turns pump off).

Does anyone have any input before I start?


Thank You,
 
should work as long as you know the ins and out of setting it up
 
Neat idea. Looking to see some feedback.

My thoughts/Concerns: The water that would be coming out of the heater would be very hot (unless you turned down the output, which you can) By the time your controller detects the correct temp, I wonder how hot the water may be near the out put. I lost a colony of Mpimbwe Fronts to an overheated tank, so that's my 1st thought.

Maybe return hot water be attached to a spraybar to make the temp rise evenly and cut pump off before you get a hot spot in the tank.

Damn!!! Now you got me thinking!!!!!! :-)
 
sounds cool...i've been wondering why a lot of the people on here with huge tanks still use the standard 300w heaters rather then upgrading and thinking outside the box a little as you are. definitely want to see some pics and updates if you do go this way
 
You could combine the output with your current filtrations output.. you can also set it on a spray bar.. thus no superheated water in one specific spot and in a small enough ammount to disperse into the tank.. Actually a really good idea would be to setup a radiator inside the tank. Have a wire coil or radiator style pipe in the tank. The length of it would allow the pipes to heat the water in the tank and cool the water in the pipe. If the pipe is long enough the output wouldn't be significantly hotter tha the water in the tank. Direct some jets around the pipes and blast water around them.
 
The system works great, except I was so excited to try it rather than waiting the extra day for the pex potable water pipe, I though lets use a few garden hoses:screwy: for the supply and return just to function test it over night. Dumb, Dumb, Dumb, I knew better, so guess what happens when you run hot water through garden hose.......it releases all kinds of harmfull chemicals. In the morning :eek:the aro's had slim coat problems and were very irritated. They will be fine...but I feel like a terrible fish keeper. This system is in, all hooked up now and I will post some pics after I do another manual water change.
 
This is the finished product:

I used the aquamedic biotherm thermostat to control a mag drive 18 that pumps water from the sump to the mechanical room where the Aqua water heater is installed use the existing exaust system, and gas. The aqua heater sees the flow and turns on the burners at the lowest setting heating the water to about 90-92 F which returns the water to the "pump out" side of the sump - which will quickly move the warmer water into the main tank. When the temp reaches the set temp in my case 85 F the aqua medic controller turns off the pump which in turn, turns off the water heater.
I was using a 1000watt heater before that was on for more than 15 hrs a day making my power bill very ugly. The gas heater can will only run for 10-15 minutes to bump the tank 1 F, which is a little fast but far more effected than 1000watts for an hour and a half. I'm very curious to see my next power bill.

20080119002.jpg

20080119003.jpg
 
A couple things I have been thinking about is; would it be better to use an exchanger in the sump to heat the water rather than heating the tank water itself? I had that trouble with the hose...surprise...surprise....Now I am a liitle concerned about the copper exchanger that is in the gas heater, if there could be any negitive effect from this. I thought I could coil up a bunch of stainless steel tubing in the sump to exchange the heat. Any input?
 
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