heaters

[tonysdiscus]

what heater or heaters would you recommend for a 450 gallon tank? Tank will be in the wall and exposed to my garage on the back side. I live in florida and really dont see alot of cold days here maybe 30's for the lows at most. Will be planted and fill of Discus and other mates. Thanks in advanced Tony

[kris2341]

For a tank that big, you will want something along the lines of a 1000 watt titanium heater at VERY MINIMUM, with a recommendation of 2000w of heating with a digital controller like a Ranco/Aqualogic controller.

http://www.jehmco.com/html/heaters.html

have a look there.

just thought I'd add, you will also need to have a good top on that tank to limit evaporation and more importantly, limit heat loss especially if the garage is freezing during the cold months. Or else you may want even more heater power.

[kwan8911]

You could also consider adding some insulation on the back of the tank since it's exposed to cold air.


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[kris2341]

As for insulation, unless you want to see the fish, I highly recommend using styrofoam panels and not the fiberglass stuff. If loose fiberglass gets into the water, it can cause some pretty bad irritation in the fish, I also lost a number of cherry shrimp because I floated a bag of shrimp that was shipped in a pocket of fiberglass without rinsing the bag. I was devastated.

[tonysdiscus]

ok thanks for the info, the garage only gets into the 50's at the lows because its insulated already. I will look into the link above. I was also thinking about making it a planted tank but not sure on what lightinh would work on a 48" tall tank?

[kris2341]

for lighting, you probably would not need anything really special depending on what you will get, do you want easy low light plants or do you want a carpet on the bottom of the tank?

If you do want a high light tank with carpet plants, you will probably need a custom made LED array with particularly powerful LEDs and optics or high powered MH/HQI lighting.

[tonysdiscus]

I def. want a carpet on the bottom. As far as the rest of the plants?? I don't know yet. I guess what ever will do well with those higher temps the discus like.


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[MKD]

I would use 2x heaters with controllers in case one goes bad (min 2x 500w, I would go 500 & 800w). This way you can put 2 places and spread out the heat faster. Looking forward to your pictures.