heating a fish room question

[Richemmers]

I have a room in my garage thats well insulated in the walls and ceiling, I have been heating it with a de-humidifier and a infrared space heater.

Well My electric usage has gone way up and I am trying to cut back a tad.

Would I be better putting lids on the tanks and running the same heating set up I have now or would I be better off Putting more insulation on the walls like the foam boards?

I have 80 tanks mostly 10's,20's and 40 breeders. and a few 90's

They all are holding there temp with out tank heaters except for the tanks on the bottom rack of the outside walls

My thought was to get some foam boards and put it on the walls half way up?

I was going to put lids on but I was told by a few people that since I am heating the room the lids will only keep in maybe a single degree?

 

[BIG-G]

Any extra insulation will definitely help.
The lids probably wouldn’t solve the problem completely but they would help a lot.

The lids will not only hold in some heat, they will also cut down on evaporation doing two things.
1 lower humidity and 2 cut down on the evaporative cooling effect.

 

[Pterophyllum sp]

Foam board the walls. Add lids, its easier (read takes less energy) to heat the air in the room when the humidity is lower.

 

[fishguy1978]

We demand pictures or it doesn't exist ? .

 

[FreshyFresh]

90 running tanks in your garage! WOW.

Lids are a must to deal with the moisture.

Reminds me of a LFS near me. The guy took over some space in a very tiny strip mall. The space wasn't designed for this. The concrete floor in the place is constantly wet. I'm talking puddles and he has to keep the doors propped open. For what ever reason, the other (very old) LFS in the area don't have this problem.

 

[dogofwar]

I've had three garage fishrooms - one in California and two in Maryland.

Definitely cover all of the tanks, if nothing more than to control humidity. I run fans throughout the fishroom to keep air circulating and reduce condensation. You don't want to let things get moldy.

My current fishroom has a split unit heating and air conditioning system and it works great. I run an additional dehumidifier and also an exhaust fan on a window - very efficient w/plenty of insulation.

Also, I keep mostly Uruguayan fish (which appreciate seasons), livebearers and native fish, so I let temps go into the low 60s for part of the winter (in the room). I have a few tanks of tropical fish and just have heaters in them. Depending on the fish, many are just fine down to the mid-60s (or even lower).

 

[Oughtsix]

I would recomend heating the tanks instead of the room as the best way to lower your power bill. Water evaporating takes a considerable amount of BTU's. Heating the tanks and capping them will lower the evaporation which should save money required to heat them. Your dehumidifier should not have to work as hard to remove the water from the air with the caps on the tanks which should also help with the power bill.

 

[jjohnwm]

I've tried both ideas in various situations in the past. Lots of factors to consider: how hot/cold your climate is, whether or not you need cooling in summer, your own comfort as well as that of the fish, etc.

Whatever else you do, you must cover those tanks; slows temp changes and controls humidity.

Insulate the whole room, walls and ceiling. Use exhaust fans when appropriate to help with humidity, and circulating fans to help keep a consistent temp for tanks at various levels on your racks.

In a coolish room with just a couple or a few tanks, individual tank heating might make sense. But...80 tanks, in Michigan? I don't think individual tank heating is even worth considering. Heating the whole room will be simpler, more trouble-free and likely cheaper, both to set up and to operate. I have always lived in cold climates and had a similarly busy fish room for years. If I were to do it again now, I would without question be heating a thoroughly insulated fish room, properly ventilated, with a dehumidifier and ideally sone sort of double-door "airlock" entryway to minimize heat loss.

 

[Toby_H]

Ah, you’re in Michigan. I grew up in Taylor, parents still live there. I’m in North Carolina now. So, my first and best suggestion is, move south.

I kept about 1200 gallons in a garage fishroom here in Charlotte NC for a handful of years.

As someone else mentioned, with the number of small’ish tanks you have heating them individually will not be efficient.

Dehumidifiers eat up a lot of power, but to your advantage put off quite a bit of heat. If you cover the tanks, you’ll have less humidity in the air, thus your dehumidifier will run less. That means it’ll eat less power and put off less heat. So, you may need to add another heater to compensate. This should still use less power though as heaters tend to be more efficient heaters than dehumidifiers.

Tank lids won’t do much to ‘hold in’ heat, since the water and the room are the same temperature. But they will hold in moisture which may be next seasons battle.

Adding insulation will certainly help. Adding it throughout would be best, but if you only do half, do the top half not the bottom. The upper air column will be warmer regardless, so you gain more benefit protecting that warm zone.

Have you looked into plumbing your tanks together? I’m not sure how much this will impact your heating concerns, but it might make a lot of other things easier. Such as reducing the number of filters you need to run and therefore reducing electrical costs elsewhere.

Speaking of filtration, what are you using? I’d assume lots of sponge filters. If not, consider it. With 80 small tanks, you can get one big air pump, run PVC along the ceiling with drop pipes taped to power individual lines. They can be complicated to design so that you have equal pressure throughout the room, but all of the materials are easy to work with.