have been pondering a monster build to upgrade from my 350 for a while, i think i am going to try to make it atleast 700-800 gallon. i am curious to know how you guys with these tanks that are thousands of gallons heat your systems? any input would be great. thanks!
heating crazy big tanks
- Thread starter hardwood07
- Start date
huge tanks and fish rooms it is often easier to heat the air. thousands of watts of pumps and lights throw a lot of heat also and 1000w titanium heaters will heat quite a bit
Another option if you have a gas hot water tank is to create a heat exchanger
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?518100-Heating-my-tank-with-Natural-Gas
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?518100-Heating-my-tank-with-Natural-Gas
I run a hot water drip plus have heaters as back up. Takes a little while to tune but after that its set and good.
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thanks for all the feed back, I think I am going to experiment with the hot water drip idea. similar to what I already have running on my 350 gal. I have a freshwater drip line that constantly brings clean water into my system and the old water overflows through a 1 inch bulkhead fitting in my sump
you can build heater containers out of 3-4" PVC pipe. install multiple heaters inside pipe and plumb a small power head to run through it.. works pretty well for my outdoor pond but I live in florida so i don't have to raise temp too much
Not true about heating the air. It is much, much less efficient to heat air rather than water as air is a much poorer conductor of heat. As far as the pumps and lights, you're absolutely correct.
If you insulate the non-viewing sides well and the tank is indoors you should be able to easily heat 700-800 gallons with 2000W or less of heaters - I heat a 500 gallon system with 900W of glass heaters. My sump (300G) is in an unheated/uninsulated crawl-space and one tank (135G) is in an insulated but unheated garage. The sump is very well insulated, as is the garage tank. My display tank (210G) isn't insulated, but it is in our living room which stays between 63 and 73 degrees.
I use a combo of a 1300w pond heater (which I think you can't get any more) and some 800w modular titaniam heaters from finnex.. I like the finnex because if a part fails you don't have to replace the whole thing.
This pond heater was expensive, and since they don't exist any more i'm screwed if it goes out. But it has a fancy controller panel that gave current temp, allowed the setting of the on/off range, and the titanium heater itself is in a protective shield.
In hindsight, I would just use a couple of the finnex ones..they're cheap too.
This pond heater was expensive, and since they don't exist any more i'm screwed if it goes out. But it has a fancy controller panel that gave current temp, allowed the setting of the on/off range, and the titanium heater itself is in a protective shield.
In hindsight, I would just use a couple of the finnex ones..they're cheap too.
I heat my 500 gallon + about 70 gallons of water in my sump by the hot water drip system as well and the tank stays at a constant 77 degrees, no heaters used.
my pump (Leader pond pump ) heats my 600gallon plus a 75gallon sump to 90degrees C, i actually drip straight cold water at 60gph to keep temp at 80