Heating the space instead of the tanks??

[suds1421]

I am currently running 7 ten gallon tanks, a 20 gallon and a 75 gallon. I'm thinking about starting to heat the fish room instead of trying to heat each tank individually. I've read it's more efficient to heat the space rather than each tank. My fish room is small, it's about 14' by 6' and is well insulated.

My question is for those that heat the space: Once you are heating the space, does it matter if you add more tanks? If you're already heating the space, will it cost more to heat another tank or is it neutral since you are heating the space anyway? I'd like to add a sump to a couple of my tanks but haven't so far because I don't want to heat the additional water, if the additional water won't need heating because the space is heated, I may proceed.

Thanks for the help! Jeff

 

[brich999]

Keep in mind water will be colder than air... Usually about 10 degrees. So if you want tanks 78-82 well ya got a fish room that doubles as a sauna. It would help, but I wouldn't do away with heaters especially since they are small tanks

 

[suds1421]

I've read about 2 degrees different. Most people that heat the room heat it to 84...

I have a kill-a-watt meter and am in the process of comparing my individual tank heaters to heating the room.

My question is if you are heating the room, does it matter if you have 10 tanks or 20?

 

[brich999]

Nope wOuldnt matter if you had a million gallons. Seems heating a room to the mid 80s would b worse than a bunch of 25w heaters n a couple bigger. It also depends where you live and how much electricity costs, luckily in NH it's really cheap(nuke plant) and setting up my 500g only put my bill up 40 per month, but if I tried to heat the room it's in, I'd be broke quick

 

[suds1421]

Nope wOuldnt matter if you had a million gallons. Seems heating a room to the mid 80s would b worse than a bunch of 25w heaters n a couple bigger. It also depends where you live and how much electricity costs, luckily in NH it's really cheap(nuke plant) and setting up my 500g only put my bill up 40 per month, but if I tried to heat the room it's in, I'd be broke quick

This advice flies in the face of every large fish room I've ever heard of. They all heat the room rather than the tanks, one I have visited has 25 tanks and heats the space with a 1500 watt heater.

There is also a semi large aquaculture facility near my work that heats the warehouse and uses tank heaters set well below the current water temp as a safety net. The main heating comes from heating the space..

I'm not saying that there isn't a breaking point, I'm just trying to determine at what point it's cheaper to heat the space than each tank..