fish room heating

[scuba123cliff]

hi gang just a question to ponder over from the vast pool of knowledge that is out there. In peoples opinion, is it better to heat the tanks individually, or heat the room. Bearing in mind that the room is fully insulated with 100mm polystyrene.

At the moment i amheating the room to 28c and individually heating discus tanks to bring it up to 32c "4 tanks", havent yet got an electricity bill so, unsure of which way is the best way to go.

It might be worth mentioning that we live in Adelaide and it does get pretty cold during the winter. So people's input would be greatly appreciated.

Cliff

[scott bowler]

hi cliff if you are going to heat the room mate , you will have to make the room very hot to get the heat in the tanks , so to heat the tanks at 32c you may have to make the room at least 36c. it is harder to keep the room at that temp. it is a good idea but it is had to achieve .if you just heat the tanks the room will hold the temp. so it will ease it a little .hope that help a little .

[the german]

it all depends how many tanks you have,you talk about an insulated room so sounds like you have a few tanks,than room heating is the go.
when the room is good isulated like yours than you need only the needed tanktemp. in your room.

why you keep discus in 32oC.30 is ok


michael

[scuba123cliff]

The room contains 15 tanks at the moment with more to come later as needed 3x220lt.7x120lt.2x75lt.1x150ltand asst small tanks.32c im not sure why but i will drop to 30c .
Cliff

[nicholas76]

ouch !! your looking at over a grand per bill cycle.

[the german]

yeah,its not a cheap hobby.....
but with gas room heating you can bring the power bill right down.
i mean at least a substancial ammount :D

[scuba123cliff]

The reality is it is not gas heated maybe if i put up solar panels, a wind generator and run an extension cord from the neighbours house i can cut the bill, but im still after an answer what do you guys do to heat rooms.
Cliff

[the german]

IMO gas is the way to go,even better is neighbours power :lol: :lol:
but solar or wind power sounds very good when you can make it work.


michael

[scott bowler]

hi cliff i ont heat the room i only have 7 tanks in my room i have a 1 6x2 2 5x2 2 4ft 2 3ft and a medi tank of 2ft and i only use heaters in them how ever my bill is still high at about $700 a qurt so it is big. I dont now how you will keep it down but you have insulated all the walls and roof. i have no ideas that can help but gas may be cheaper. if you can find a way to use solar even better but will it hold heat though the colder months .but good luck mate there must be a way just have to find it .

[GreenDiscus]

Hi Cliff
My "real job", apart from keeping discus, is Energy Management, and to be honest your INSULATION is the key to running costs for both scenariaos. The amount of energy needed to heat the litres of water at the correct tempereture will be similar whether air heating or tank heating is carried out.

However, with tank heating the air temp may be a bit less and you have less losses when the door opens, but the capital cost and durability of aquariaum heaters is often worse than room CONVECTOR heaters. - BUT if one water tank heater fails, you do not loose everything !!

As far as running costs go I would look more at the price per Insulated kWh - ie use the floor mass with underfloor heating on cheap night tariffs, OR use a Heat Pump (air or water unit) since you will get 3kW of heat for every 1KW of Electricity !!

Good Luck Mike

[norto]

Cliff,
It is a very interesting subject you raise I have just built a fish room myself so I am doing a bit of experimenting.Before I had the room I had the tanks just in an open shed and the temp here drops below zero in the winter so the tanks were working hard to maintain the right temp.With the new room i made sure I insulated it very well I used insulating Batts in the walls and roof and I kept the room as small as possible with the ceiling height as low as possible but still being practical, the reason I did this was I visited a guy who breeds Chiclids in our area and his room was well built but I don't think he had any insulation he said his power bill dropped by $200 per quarter just by putting them in the room together as the heat radiating through the glass into the room heated the room.One thing I have done is I have wired in an old electricity meter to compare the usage from the room to the shed but will have to wait till we get right into the winter to really compare the difference.Anyway like I said still experimenting so I will let you know.
Norto.

[Grahoc]

Norto PM sent

[norto]

PM Received and responded.
Norto.