External heating for pond?

[nikirushka]

I've got a 3000l tropical pond in my kitchen. Wood carcass, insulated, ply lined then pond liner. Come summer, I'm going to remove the liner and epoxy the inside, and install a viewing window.

Currently it has two 1200W quartz heaters which are doing a good job keeping it at 24C in my warm house, but I'm curious if there are any external options that might be a little cheaper to run? There's a radiator next to it at the moment but I'm hoping to remove that and put some french doors in where it is.

I'm thinking about maybe installing heating cables, or electric underfloor heating if that would work. At the moment the floor is just my concrete floor with thin insulation on top then the liner, but I'll be adding a frame and thick insulation to help more with the temperature over winter (the kitchen is my coolest room unfortunately, but was the only room with enough space for the pond). So I'd have a thicker base to put something in.

Is it feasible, or would it just end up costing about the same as the internal heaters to run?

Alternatively I'll build an enclosure on top of the rim at front and side (where it's open to the kitchen and my lounge) and install a wall heater, so in winter I'm just heating the air over the pond as an addition to the water heaters, but I'd rather have something hidden if I can.

Image is from the build so you can see what I'm working with.

 

[troublesum]

LOL!! you built a 800 gallon pond in your kitchen. I thought i was bad i gave up sitting space in my living room gave away a sofa to add another tank.
Sorry i cant help with your question

 

[nikirushka]

I impulse rehomes some big barbs then figured well, I live alone and that's not going to change, so why not?

 

[Toby_H]

I impulse rehomes some big barbs then figured well, I live alone and that's not going to change, so why not?

That's brilliant. I may need to rehome my wife.............

There's a guy with a several hundred gallon aquarium that uses his hot water tank to heat the tank. I don't know the exact details. But basically plumbed a very small pump into his hot water tank. Has an electronic thermostat that kicks on the pump when the tank drops below a certain temp. Pump circulates hot water through a line that is submerged in the sump. The hot water is not discharged into the tank, it just circulates through lines that are submerged and return to the hot water tank.

It's honestly the most ingenious way I've heard of heating a tank. The cost to reheat the slight loss is nil. The circulation pump is so small the cost to run it is barely more than nil.

But... it only works if your filtration is near your hot water tank.