Reefs.org Forums

[tommyfishpr]

Hello.

Do not know many people in the industry that would help me so I always come here for some advice.

I need to add heater to a approx. 6,000 fish system and would like to know how many of you go about doing this. In worst situation I would need to pull down about 13°.

From say 65°, heat to 78°

I have received mixed numbers / type of equipment so I would like to compare them with some your advice and see what fits better.

Thanks and Happy Holidays.

[spawner]

http://www.process-technology.com/

Aquatic Ecosystem sells them. I've used them for more than 10 years. They will help you size it. I'd think a 1800 Watt unit would do. Your looking at about 300 bucks or so. Get an L shaped heater.

[GreshamH]

http://www.process-technology.com/

Aquatic Ecosystem sells them. I've used them for more than 10 years. They will help you size it. I'd think a 1800 Watt unit would do. Your looking at about 300 bucks or so. Get an L shaped heater.

Ditto.

[Snailman]

And make sure you don't plug it into the timed light power strip.

[dizzy]

Those must be quite the efficient heater if you can heat 6,000-gallon with only 1,800 watts. Most people use a 3-5 watts per gallon rule of thumb.

[spawner]

They are but you are likely correct. They will size it for him.

[tommyfishpr]

Thanks all.

One of my distributors did recommend me them.

The biggest problem I have as you can now tell is what size.

Process technology said 8k watt should do it however I had previously talked to aquatic ecosystem and the initial number they gave me was 36K

I will have to talk to them again.......

now you can see why I am mixed up.

[spawner]

8KW, wow that is some serious power.

Just to give you an idea, I used a 6KW heat to heat 300 gallons of water from 16C to 26C took about 30 minutes to heat up. We used it to heat incoming water in a header tank, so the water would drain out, then fill back up and the heater would re-heat the water which took about 10-15 minutes with a 75% water exchange. AES sized me a 30KW for our application and I found that 6KW worked perfectly, we didn't have the money to buy a bigger heater, so we gave it a shot, the system is still working and that's more than 7 years, cycling every 45 minutes to an hour.

If your using this in a fish system, where things should be stable, no incoming cold water source, then you'd need a lot smaller heater than if it was getting cold inputs.

At any rate, you should never rely on one big heater to heat your system, so you could buy a smaller heater and try it out and then buy another for a backup or additional heat. It's really going to come down to how well your insulated and what your heat loss is. Hope you have plenty of power.

Good luck.

[condiman]

I may have some ideas for you i just need a few more details on things I have a 10000 gallon tank setup with one of my clients and what they use may work for you.

[ctenophore]

You should try to calculate your actual BTU loss rate. A BTU being heat needed to raise a pound of water 1F. If your 6000 gal system (8.5*6000=51,000 lbs) loses 1F/hr then you need 51k BTU/hr. 1 watt = 3.4 BTU/hr, so you would need 15,000 watts of heat to keep it constant.

My suggestion is to look into heat pumps. Aqualogic makes a good one. I use their 3 hp (36000 BTU/hr) units in a coral greenhouse. Heat pumps are far more efficient than electrical resistance heating, typically 3 or 4 times as efficient depending on the air source temp. If you have 65F air, then it would work very well. It loses it's ability to extract heat from air the colder the air gets, down to approximately 35F where it becomes about as efficient as electric heat. Heat pumps are best installed outside though, otherwise they will simply pull all the heat out of the air in your building and put it in the water. Then you get cold air, increased evaporation, and humidity problems.

Another alternative is a gas heater, AES sells them too.

Hope this helps.
Justin