Conserving Heat

[Mak]

All,

How many of you have taken steps to conserve heat in your tanks? Using any kind of insulation, foam boards or reflective materials?

Anyone using a primary heat source other than submersable electric heaters? Radiant heat , solar, keep the tank near a radiator, ect, ect???

Cant wait to see that electric bill now that I am keeping Discus.

Mak

[jeep]

With winter approaching I've been thinking the same thing. I don't think you can get real efficient, but here's my plan, for what it's worth.

I'm currently building a 2 racks. One is a quad rack for 4 55g tanks, the other is for 6 29's. I plan on putting 3/4" foam board on the bottom of all tanks. I also plan on putting plastic reflective insultation on the sides and back of every tank.

There's really nothing that can be done to retain the heat on the face or the top of the tanks, but I guess this will have to do.

Also, my "fishroom" is actually a spare bedroom since I don't have a basement. At night I'm going to put a 1500 watt heater in the room and close the door. I have no idea if raising the room temp will reduce the on/off time of the tanks heaters, but 1500 watts isn't really that much...

Brian

[Mak]

Brian,

I have 3/4 inch foam insulation on five sides of my water mix tank downstairs. This morning I started experimenting with my Discus tank. I glued up some wood grain counter top matrl. ( Home Depot) to 1 1/2 in. of foam board and stuck that to the back of the tank that is against a outside wall. I have two canisters under the tank, so I enclosed the back of the base cabinet with the same 3/4 board.

The temp of the air space under the tank is at 80 deg. Just from the heat given off by the canister filters. The water temp went from 83 this morning to 86 now. We are not realy into the cold weather yet, but I my be able to back the thermostat a hair.

I am planing a 70-100 gal up grade for my fish as they grow out. A pair of 300's glowing night and day can realy spin the meter. I know of one fish store that has no heaters in any of their tanks. They keep the air in the shop at 78-80. Cozzy place to work in the winter.

Mak

[susankay1]

We are planning a fishroom in our basement, where our boiler is...think it will be warm enough in the winter but in the summer, we will have to put heaters in the tanks, Im sure.

[ronrca]

I insulate each tank also with 1/2 styrofoam on the sides/back, 3/4 styrofoam on the bottom. Lids on the tanks also help keep the heat in increase of rising. I also insulate the pipes. Another aspect is reducing the temperature difference between the room temp and tank temp.

If you have a lot of tanks in one room with a lot of heaters, I would suggest getting a baseboard or space heater and heating the room to the same temp as the tanks are. For example, lets same you have 10 tanks in a room (small fish room). 4 20G, 2 40G, 2 50G, 1 75G and 1 100G. Based on the 5W/G guideline ,you will probably have 5 100W, 3 200W, 2 250W, 2 300W equaling 2200W! If you get a baseboard heater rated at 1500W, you will save yourself quite a bit of power especially if you have a lot more tanks/heaters. Get a natural gas heater and save even more (depending on the area and cost of natural gas of course).

Lets calculate monies based on heaters being on 50% (which is generous (worst case perhaps) but also dependant on the ambient temp). I will also use $0.06 kwh.

Heaters in tanks
2.2kW*12hours/day = 26.400kWH/D * 30D/month = 792kWH/month * $0.06/kWH = $47.52/month

Baseboard Heater
1.5kW * 12H/D = 18kWH/D * 30D/month = 540kWH/month * $0.06/kWH = $32.4/month

Difference of $15.12/month if my calcs are correct! Of course, your heaters may not be on for 12 hours a day therefore the difference will be less but you get the idea!

Therefore, by heating the room instead, you can save yourself twofold. Dont have to buy as many heaters and the heaters rarely need to be on! ;) I dont use a baseboard heater since my dehumifier puts out lots of heat already! If I keep that door closed to the fishroom, the temp at the end on the day is around 33C. :( A little too hot.

[Boyd Luth]

I AM A NEWBE TO THE FORUMS....HOWEVER AFTER A FEW YEARS WORKING WITH HEAT ENERGY ( POWER GENERATION ) I WOULD BELIEVE HEAT RISES OUT OF THE TANK....NO MATTER HOW MUCH WE INSULATE? SEEMS THE AMBIENT TEMPERATURE OF THE ROOM WOULD BE THE WISE WAY TO GO. WOULDN'T WANT TO SEAL THE TOP OF THE TANK:-) BOYD.

[jeep]

Wow!! Old thread!!

Check this one out...

http://forum.simplydiscus.com//do-yourself-fish-room-projects/38372-tank-insulation-money-saver.html

[aquaticplantman]

I AM A NEWBE TO THE FORUMS....HOWEVER AFTER A FEW YEARS WORKING WITH HEAT ENERGY ( POWER GENERATION ) I WOULD BELIEVE HEAT RISES OUT OF THE TANK....NO MATTER HOW MUCH WE INSULATE? SEEMS THE AMBIENT TEMPERATURE OF THE ROOM WOULD BE THE WISE WAY TO GO. WOULDN'T WANT TO SEAL THE TOP OF THE TANK:-) BOYD.

You have a very good point. It will still depend on just how much energy it would take to heat the whole room vs. the tanks. My winter gets very cold and my fish room has two exterior walls. I don't think it would be more efficient at all to heat the whole room. I'm going to try to lay Reflectix over the top of the tank lids and see how that works (and also insulate the sides).

-- Matt H.

[jeep]

Keep in mind that reflectix does not work like traditional insulation. It reflects radiant heat.

An example of my opinion of this product is when I accidentally heated an unoccupied tank to 98 degrees (different story), I unplugged the heater and went to work. When I came back for lunch 6 hours later, the temp in the tank was 97 degrees without a heater and without a lid.

I know most heat loss is through the top but doing everything I can to conserve the heat without ruining the appearance is worth the effort, IMO...

[FischAutoTechGarten]

Sue,
Your boiler would have to be really inefficeint to actually heat the air in your basement enough to augment tank heating. I know... I located my Skanky Basement O' Fish Rack 3 feet from my boiler. It did nothing.

Mark,
The best thing I found was to insulate the tanks, top, bottom and sides and to place a towel accross the fronts when not there looking at the tanks. I also wrapped by storage tanks in blankets and set them on styrofoam too. This helped, however, with my basement temp averaging between 62-68 degF, it was still costly to heat the tanks to 84-86degF.

I'd never locate tanks in a cold basement again. They are out of sight and out of mind, which means they are easy to neglect and hard to enjoy.

[lauris]

Reflectix is easy to work with and I wrap all my tanks with it. Jeep had a thread awhile back about it. Basically buy it at a home center and wrap up the tank with it like wrapping a present. Not sure how much savings are realized. I question (without foundation mind you) whether it is effective at all to use foam board, at least on the sides without some type of 'seal'.

[CODISCUS]

I was at JJ Discus last week and he enclosed his fish room with 6 mil plastic and also made a plastic curtain door. This kept the humidity and heat in the one room. I was extremely surprised of how well this worked. I'm going to do this in my room when spring approaches. I can use the humidity for the winter.

Mike