INLINE HEATERS

[revkkoolaid]

I really like the design of the hydors, but how do you deal with the fact that the largest plumbing they work with is 5/8"?

We use E2260/62s in the field mostly and the return lines are 5/8''.

Personally I like my returns tapered down a bit to get good concentrated flow blasting out. It really doesn't effect the true turnover rate much IMO.

We have 800-900 gallon discus tanks running off of 4 x 2262s stacked w/ various media plumbed thru the bottom each with a hydor inline on 5/8'' returns and have no circulation issues. Granted many of our larger aquariums have huge wet/drys or sump/micronbags w/ inline return or circular pumps for more than overkill on circ. But there is something to be said for a gleaming 10ft aquarium without a speck of equipment showing. No cords. No overflows. No returns. Just a hardscaped wall of discus viewable from both sides.

I like your invention. Whatever works I always say! And I'm sure all the WEAPONS GRADE inline heaters in various sizes and higher wattages will be produced soon. For now the hydors are inexpensive and work great.

 

[hillbilly]

Now that it was mentioned, they are very large inline heaters being made. In my trusty AquaticEco.com catalog, they have Red Line brand inline heaters from 750 to 9000 watts. Aqua Logic heaters from 1.5 kW, 13 amps, to monsters that are 8 kW, 30 amps. 11000 watt Haywards, as well inline natural gas and propane fired models from 199,500 BTUs to 399,000 BTUs that could probably heat your local fishing pond!

 

[revkkoolaid]

as well inline natural gas and propane fired models from 199,500 BTUs to 399,000 BTUs that could probably heat your local fishing pond!

Now thats some weapons grade MFK strength heat! I figured as much.
Honestly we've never really needed anything that strong on a tank here given the climate here and how much heat huge inline pumps dump into the water lol.

I think the biggest Discus install we've been involved with was some crazy tanks Mike and Jeff aquascaped or consulted on or some crap in Florida. One of which was 16'x4'x9'. I dunno what that tank had on it for heat but again given the climate and normal system heat output it was probably pretty easy I would assume.

Dan at Houston Aquarium Warehouse/Gulf Coast Discus has a household tankless water heater at his shop he uses on his discus system for water changes. It was only a couple of hundred bucks & easy to hook up and he's got endless hot water in the dead of winter. I was beggin for one last winter at ADG as the building we're dying to get out of has a regular *** water heater and we have 9723423276 water changes to do every day in the gallery and holding systems. I shopped around and came across small portable AC versions I considered buying for water changes on tanks where I have to use outside fills. But then Houston's 3 weeks of winter was over and it was 92 outside again It was during last winter I was really impressed by the wee hydor inlines. Most of our discus installs in the field are in the 200-300 gal range and 2 hydors kept it damned near dead on even running during 50% water changes with water in the 60s as long as the fill was ran a little slow. Awesome heat dispersal esp. when blasting up from the bottom. Plus as inexpensive as they are I like the redundancy of of employing multiples. 2 is good for most sm/med sized tanks. Doesn't really add much cabling or plumbing. Although 4 is pushing the Dr. Frankenstein factor I'll admit

 

[hillbilly]

Yeah, I saw some of those tank-less heaters at the local Lowes. I own a building that was once used as a small warehouse with one roll up door, and a small office on the end. I've been using it for several years as my woodworking shop, another hobby of mine. I was thinking about installing one of those in there so I could turn the office part into a fish room. The old office is ideal for this since it is a 20'x 20' space, and already well insulated. The thing that holds me up is it doesn't have any permanent heat or air. It can get rather hot in there during the summer, and chilly in the winter up here in the Blue Ridge. I was thinking I could maybe put a small, used heat pump system in there, so I would have thermostatically controlled heat and air. I don't know, I'm still looking for ideas.