Heat the whole room or just the tanks?

[Newt]

My fishroom is going to be 9' X 11'. It's in the basement, which is cool year round (60 in winter, max of 70 in summer.)

I plan on having a 180, a 75, a 55, 2 29's, a 35, a 20 gallon and ten for feeder shrimp and guppies.

Would it be cheaper to run a space heater to keep the whole room at 78-80 or to just put heaters in every tank?

 

[PMK]

Id say heaters in the tank

 

[Dr Joe]

If the space heater goes out all the tanks are affected, vs individual heaters.

Try calculating the usage both ways here's a calculator

http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/electrical_costs.php

change to USD and input your local cost per kwh.

Hope this helps in your decision making.

Dr Joe

.

 

[dogofwar]

I keep heaters in all my tanks in my fishroom AND I heat the room. That just means that the heaters are on less.

 

[ewurm]

Id say heaters in the tank

Me too, cheaper.

 

[Newt]

Thanks guys!

 

[amehel0]

the long run electrcity cost would be cheaper to have a room cooled and heated depending on where you live and what kind of setups for me with all my fish tanks it would be to expensive to run several marines as the price of chillers is not worth it. so it would be cheaper to cool a room.

 

[cvermeulen]

Make sure you insulate the room... bare concrete walls will wick away heat into the ground... think of the ground around your house as a giant heat sink. A few hundred dollars on some styro insulation on the walls will save you a lot of heating headaches.

 

[fishdance]

I would give some consideration towards Multiple Tank Syndrome. I ended up turning all my tanks end on in order to cram more tanks into my fishroom. Even if you dont get more tanks I would heat the room.

Heating an insulated room is more economical since heating tanks will just end up heating the room. Heating the room will eliminate temperature fluctuations and variations between tank and room. Heating the room will avoid condensation on outside of tanks which creates mould/corrosion/smell. Heating the room is cheaper in terms of hardware cost and cheaper in terms of running cost. Heating the room is more reliable since I havent met an aquarist who hasnt ever had a heater failure.

I recommend a fan forced gas heater with thermostat, next a reverse cycle air conditioner, next an electric room heater.
Just my 2.2 cents