More efficient way to heat aged water?

[DIY]

My electricity bill is a bit out of control at the moment :oops: and I really think the 220L barrel that I use to age water is one of the main culprits.

The problem is I want to increase the capacity of my aged water by at least double. This is easy with a second barrel, but keeping 2 barrels warm outside in winter is going to be co$tly even with layers of insulation.

I'm wondering if I can kill 2 birds with one stone, and age the water with an airstone, and use a relatively cheap water pressure pump like the ones in bunnings connected to an LPG instant gas heater?

The thought struck me when I saw these for sale on ebay. http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Instant-LPG-Hot-Water-Heater-Best-Quality-on-market_W0QQitemZ110140196486QQihZ001QQcategoryZ789 73QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I'm not sure how economical LPG is for heating, but the fact it would only be heating the water at time of use would have to be more efficient than keeping a barrel at 25c during cold winter nights surely?

Anyone doing something like this, or have opinions on how well it might work?

[Roy]

Are you doing daily water changes or once weekly ?
If its once a week just heat the water the day before.
Alternatively find a way to move them inside, melbourne winter and a pile of water = lots of power.

Roy

[DIY]

Neither of those ideas work unfortunately, no space inside and due to work commitments I can't be sure which night I'll be doing a w/c. With 2 tanks, combined I'm doing a w/c 2 or 3 evenings a week anyway.

I'm thinking of setting up another tank or 2, If I had more aged water ready to go, I could do more than 1 tank in an evening and/or do a larger than 35% w/c in my display tank.

[DiscusMad]

what about boiling the kettle and adding the boiling hot water to the aged water?

[scott bowler]

you can buy heating coils they are 1000w takes about 1/2 to heat the 220l barrels i use 1 look online for 1 they dont cost that much and a great thing to have. i will see if i can find the site were i found 1 and post it here for you

[samir]

you can buy heating coils

you just gave me an idea :lol: :lol: :lol:

[scott bowler]

allways happy to help with your ideas samir you going to share or what hehe

[DiscusMad]

I saw on a US forum of a guy heating up a 10Ft tank with the pump pumping straight into a electric kettle that overflowed into the tank with the switch taped down

can you belive that!

I highly don't recomend that!

[fishgeek]

what about solar?
did the aus goverment remove incentives for solar power and hot water or something , last time i was back there seemed to be fewer panels on roof's

andrew

[samir]

The problem with solar is that a 175 watt panel costs $1490, thats around $8.50 a watt. To run my setup I'm looking at around $40k in costs, which I should recover if i run it continously till 2040. To run an entire house, one would be looking at around $100k, roughly 25% of the cost of an average Sydney home.
Now they say, with the massive demand for solar panels, there is a shortage of high grade silicon, so "expect a 5-15% price rise soon".
For $40k I could buy the Aquarama Grand Champion :lol: :lol: :lol: why waste it on solar.


allways happy to help with your ideas samir you going to share or what hehe

I bought a $200 electronic thermostat for my DIY incubator a while ago. Its accurate to .5 fahrenheit, and thats with air, no aquarium heater comes close, so I thought heating cable, thermostat hmmm , i dont need the incubator anymore ( the quail were delicious, but they crap a lot hehe) so maybe 2000 watts of heating cable and I'll be set for life, no more heaters.

[paulj]

A simple way is to use a normal 200W aquarium heater suspended attached to the lid of the barrel in the water with an air stone to circulate the heat and use a timer to limit the hours the heater is on and insulate the barrel with some sort of insulation material.

[Bad Inferno]

I have a 120 litre barrel outside and in winter I have found I age 80 litres over two days then I get two buckets of hot water (out of the tap) and poor it into the barrel. It moves the temp up to about 24 degrees which I then put straight into the Aquarium. I know the hot water isn't aged however the hot water unit is relatively new and I thought at least 75% of the water is aged. I do dechlor the hot water.

rob