Heating a 625 gallon tank?

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J

JonY3k

Gambusia
MFK Member
Feb 22, 2013
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Ohio Wooster
I am working on building a 626 gallon fish tank and have about everything figured out except how to heat it. I am currently heating my 220 gallon tank with at 300W heater. But need something bigger. I want to run tubing under the gravel and run hot water through it but that will require an expensive hot water pump to circulate the hot water from my house hot water tank. Or buy or build a low pressure water heater so I can uses a cheaper pump that is not rated for house water pressure. Anything I build will have to be under the tank. Am I over thinking this?
:nilly: :naughty:
 
I would say get two titanium 500w heaters and call it good. But that's just me. They are about 50$ if you shop around. I have a rule of thumb (gallons of tank X 2 = my heater watts) usually turns out to be plenty but IMO its better to have your heaters turn on for a couple min then shut off rather than a TOO small of heater running 24/7

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Here you do not say what your filter system is. Can you put some heaters like 2 - 500 watt in the filter system so it does not show and cannot get damaged or damage a fish from the massive heat it gives off? Running a pump from a house water heater sound interesting but complicated. If you could figure out the controls and you like to tinker why not?
 
Yes I am a tinker that is why I am building my tank instead of being happy with my 220 gallon tank :-) The filter is going to be a Tetra Pond Bio-Active Pressure Filter BP4000. I was thinking about using a smaller aquarium water heater as a thermostat. When the smaller heater wanted to turn on it will energize a relay coil that will power the pump. To pump the how water through the coils in the tank gravel.
 
The water for my house is heated by electric but I have propane heater for the house. If I could find a tank less water heater for cheap it wold be a really nice option.
 
I have 4 300 watt jager heaters(1200 watts), but I have a slow hot water drip that drips water into my tank 24/7, the drip is really what heats my tank all the time. Stays at 79 all the time and the heaters dont run at all unless for some reason the temp drops off which has not happened, It does and did take a good amount of practice to get the right amount of hot and cold water dripping to make a good 79 degrees but its possible and sure saves allot of power because normally it takes 2 heaters to heat the tank and the 3rd might come on with them every now and again and thats allot of power to burn.
 
My father is an electrical engineer. I understand what I am about to tell you but many do not as I am not a teacher. : It take a certain amount of therms to heat water. It is one of the most efficient mediums to heat. If you are heating with electricity it takes a certain amount of therms that are created from a defined amount of watts to heat a specific volume of water. It does not matter what the element is if it is made to heat water it will cost the same to heat the same amount of water. The savings comes in the distribution system to reach the element or if you can generate the therms needed from a different cheaper source of energy such as solar or natural gas. Propane is only a minor bit cheaper then electricity depending completely on its price per therm.

Your idea to use a heater as the thermostat will work well if set up correctly. They make under gravel heaters that have a thermostat that could work even better for your application. It all sounds very interesting. At the very least the distribution system of what you are proposing will be efficient and you could save a few bucks. Keep us informed!
 
Thanks for the help. At the moment my tank is a pile of glass, wood, and steel. I have ran in to some delays building it. Because my girl friend wants me to replace the carpet in that room before I build the tank. So I have been working on cleaning out the fish room. I think the plan at the moment for heating the tank will be glass heaters that I already have. but while I am building the tank I am going to mount Pex tubing to a 2 ft by 8 ft white plastic lattice and put it under the gravel. I will have the tubing come up out of the tank so I can hook water up to it when I am ready. After the tank is set up and running.
 
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