Heating a 625 gallon tank?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
I have a few questions:

What is your cost per KW of electricity?
What is your cost per gallon of your propane including delivery?
What is the efficiency of your hot water heater?
What is the temperature of your room?
What temperature do you want your aquarium water to reach?
 
Cicho that is a lot of questions. My hot water heater is electric so unless I hook up a separate propane heater I am stuck heating with electric for the tank. At the moment the temp in my house is 65 F. during the summer my house gets pretty worm last year I had to unhook the heaters in my tank because it was getting too hot in the tank I try to keep the tanks about 75F. I may have to run the air conditioner this summer just to get the moisture out of the air. At the moment I have 4 tanks with water in them. but hope to get that down to 2 or 3 tanks when I get the new tank built. The ideal set up will be 3 tanks. My 625 as my main set up, my girl friend can uses my 220 set up for her tank, and I have a 65 gallon tank that I can keep empty to Quarantine new or sick fish.
 
JonY3k said:
Cicho that is a lot of questions. My hot water heater is electric so unless I hook up a separate propane heater I am stuck heating with electric for the tank. At the moment the temp in my house is 65 F. during the summer my house gets pretty worm last year I had to unhook the heaters in my tank because it was getting too hot in the tank I try to keep the tanks about 75F. I may have to run the air conditioner this summer just to get the moisture out of the air. At the moment I have 4 tanks with water in them. but hope to get that down to 2 or 3 tanks when I get the new tank built. The ideal set up will be 3 tanks. My 625 as my main set up, my girl friend can uses my 220 set up for her tank, and I have a 65 gallon tank that I can keep empty to Quarantine new or sick fish.
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Well the reason I asked the questions was to get a gauge on the cost benefit of one method to another.

Using the electric hot water heater is not an option. You already told us that you house heat is electric so there is no fuel source (natural gas or propane) at your house, I guess?!

I'd say get some electric heaters and call it a day because it likely doesn't make sense to buy major hardware such as a tankless hot water heater or boiler if you don't have other uses for them or existing fuel source infrastructure in place.
 
JonY3k said:
I was thinking about using a smaller aquarium water heater as a thermostat. When the smaller heater wanted to turn on it will energize a relay coil that will power the pump. To pump the how water through the coils in the tank gravel.
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Aquarium heaters are notoriously unreliable.

It sounds like what you would want to use is a Ranco ETC temperature controller: http://www.jehmco.com/html/temperature_controller.html

If you are going to run multiple heaters, these controllers are great. It will also work well for your future heating plans.
 
I want to add that covering the tank if possible with help reduce heat and moisture loss. Plus if you insulate around the back, bottom and sides of the tank if possible, it will help hold in the heat.
 
I have been thinking about insulating the sides though not sure how it will look because the floor of the tank is 8 ft by 47.5 inches so the back will be a big bigger than 8 ft long. I have never been a big fan of aquarium lids normally I just uses sheets of glass. Just a side note the web site will not let me on the Chat. when it logs on it tells me "Incorrect user name or password. Please try again." but I am logged on. it has my profile name at the top. Help please
 
I am having some trouble keeping the water in the tank but the heater was working pretty good. I got a 4 gallon water heater and pump the water through 50 ft of PEX tubing. The plan it to keep the water water heater at 80 F or so. I have a small pump in a 5 gallon bucket that pumps the water through the heater in to the tubing in the tank and back in to the bucket. I will hook the pump up to a thermostat to regulate the temperature.
 
The under gravel filter. I have a pump in the bucket that pumps the water through the water heater then through the coils in the tank. I will hook the pump to a thermostat and keep the water heater on all of the time. I need to finish putting the gravel back in the tank. I have the bricks on top of the coils to keep them down till I get all of the gravel in.

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