Large tanks in basements.

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letting all of my 100-500 heaters go blasting full bore all the timel.

Oops, I meant 100-500 WATT heaters, there's only a couple dozen...not 100-500. lol

I have nice fitting lids on all my tanks and my heaters could easily handle the load but I like to come home from working outside all day and feed my fish in my warm, comfy, cozy little fish room as well.
Gives you that "Good to be home feeling".
 
Heck, I'm trying to keep some of my tanks from getting over 77 degrees right now in our finished/partly finished basement...lol. I do heat the 600 gallon to 82 degrees, so that creates quite a bit of warmth down there.
 
I have an unfinished basement with a 600 gallon...with about 700 gallons total i have 2 800 watt heater and a make shift lid.....its nightmare in this winter in northeast PA especially when it hits the negatives outside....

A trick is to wrap the back side and sides of the tank with insulation and use insulation boards on top during winter months for an unfinished basement tank.


I even have a 100 gallons per day cold drip system :( which doesnt help so during cold weeks i dial it back a bit to help with heating costs.... also feed less
 
I'm lucky in the respect that my basement is somewhat heated, however not Insulated as well so it stays high 60s at tank level on that side of the room.
 
I could never bring my basement tanks temp high enough to use the heat method, but I just pour rock, or water softener salt ($5 per 50lbs) into sumps by the handful until salinity reached just over 3ppt (parts per thousand), the osmotic pressure of over 3 ppt makes the cell walls of emerging ick protozoa implode, as soon as they pop off the fish, or from the substrate.
 
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