Sick of battling submersible heaters

[Grinch]

With 3 winters in our basement fishroom under our belts, I am finally ready to admit, I am sick of battling submersible heaters. They all seem to have their own heating profile.

If you had to heat a busy fish room with little space (wall, floor, or otherwise), how would you heat it?

Radiant from the furnace/hot-water heater?
Wall mounted gas?
Wall mounted ceramic?
Ceramic space heater?
Oil space heater?
In-tank heaters with a controller(s)?

What are the pros and cons of each, in your opinion?

Our fish room is about 200 square feet. I think we'd be looking for about a 10F bump in the heat above ambient. Walls and floor are stone and concrete respectively.

 

[Fish Tank Travis]

How many tanks do you have in that space? Can you take any pictures?

If you are possibly going to heat the room, then I think you need to look into insulating the walls, floor and ceiling first. Otherwise, you will lose a lot of heat.

If you're only trying to get to 10 deg F above ambient temperature, the I recommend sticking with an in-tank/sump heater with a controller. I use the InkBird 308 off Amazon and combine it with AquaTop heaters. Both have been working great for my tanks so far.

You shouldn't need anything that big for a 10 deg F difference. For example, we keep our house at 70 and I keep my 220 with 55 gallon sump at 82. I use two AquaTop 300W heaters that are controlled with the InkBird controller. If the controller somehow fails on, the heaters internal thermostats will turn them off.

Now, if you have a lot of tanks, then it might be better to go ahead and insulate the room and heat it with a wall heater.

 

[Rmelz]

Some time in the near future i'll post a pic of my set-up. I have a 1/2" OD ss coil I made from 10' of tubing that sits in my sump. I bought a 120V thermostat with a submersible sensor off eBay that switches the neutral to a potable water recirculating pump on my hot water tank.. I have pex running from the tap on the hot water side of the heater that runs to the coil and back from the coil to the return pump. It heats my 75 gallon tank and 75 gallon sump very very nicely and it's very efficient to run.

 

[Rmelz]

To add to my post, I've seen people use pex in the sump but the thermal transfer is MUCH MUCH better with SS. If you have multiple tanks you can set up a zoned system pretty much like they set up radiant heat zoning for a house, 3 tanks would be three zones.

 

[Rmelz]

 

[xraycer]

Grinch how many tanks are in that space? What's the average ambient temp in the winter time?

 

[Grinch]

We have about 900 gallons going in our fishroom... spread between 28 fish tanks and two water storage containers. We are currently using in tank heaters supplemented with forced air. My beef with this setup is mainly variation in temperature between tanks, but variation day to day is also a concern because the thermostat on the forced air is elsewhere.

 

[xraycer]

We have about 900 gallons going in our fishroom... spread between 28 fish tanks and two water storage containers. We are currently using in tank heaters supplemented with forced air. My beef with this setup is mainly variation in temperature between tanks, but variation day to day is also a concern because the thermostat on the forced air is elsewhere.

Definitely insulating and heating the room is the way to go, economically and efficiently, for this scenario. I would think in a 200sf well insulated space, just a large space heater should be enough. Once the room gets up to the set ambient temp, ALL the tanks will also stay at this temp....no in tank heaters needed!

 

[Grinch]

But which method would you use to heat the room?

 

[xraycer]

But which method would you use to heat the room?

I would think in a 200sf well insulated space, just a large space heater should be enough.