rcon021 Posted January 8, 2012 Report Share Posted January 8, 2012 Finallly finished my fish room. Rather than heating individual tanks I wanted to heat the whole room and want to know how others are doing it? This woul be better since I can keep a close eye on it and it's cost effective. Also what temperature are you maintaining the room at? Thanks for the help Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwiplymouth Posted January 8, 2012 Report Share Posted January 8, 2012 My fishroom sits between 27-27.5 unheated tanks at floor level sit around 25 and unheated tanks at eye level sit around 26.5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanmin4304 Posted January 8, 2012 Report Share Posted January 8, 2012 Many commercial breeders and importers keep the temperature at 22-23 deg C to save power and it slows up the onset of diseases. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwiplymouth Posted January 8, 2012 Report Share Posted January 8, 2012 The main source of heat in my room comes from lighting all the planted tanks (approx 800w) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcon021 Posted January 8, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 8, 2012 I plan on maintaining the correct temp. I am using LED lights so not much heat in the room. What if I used a oil heater? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Navarre Posted January 8, 2012 Report Share Posted January 8, 2012 I use fluro tubes for light and I have an air compressor in my room ( that I am thinking about relocating outside the room). I have floor to ceiling tanks and there is certainly a temp gradient. I run a couple (2-3) heaters in individual tanks (fry/Discus/tanks with specialty fish) otherwise I use a 1 kw fan heater on the floor at one end of my room and thsi keeps my water at head height at 25 deg. I would recomend a dehymidifer as dry air is easier to heat and when I was running one of those in my room odour was less and so was my power bill. Cost will depend on insulation and I have also in the last few months lined the roof of my room with Black polyethyne to get some sort of solar gain Some air movement is gained from the fan heater which I think is a benifit but may also cause flash off of some water? Not sure if it is enough to matter. HTH Nav Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanmin4304 Posted January 8, 2012 Report Share Posted January 8, 2012 I used to have a heavily insulated fishroom which was heated by a 1kW heater with a fan rewired so it went all the time. The heater was hardly ever on. Had about 60 tanks--mainly about 600mm x 600mm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueether Posted January 9, 2012 Report Share Posted January 9, 2012 If I was going to heat a fish room (or in my case cool it for natives) I think I would run a small heatpunp and a desk fan to move air around. Should get more heating per $ that way Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcon021 Posted January 9, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 9, 2012 So at the moment I have put an oil heater in the room to find the correct setting. Without doing anything the tanks without heaters are at 22 (before the heater) but need them at about 25 min. Will get a small fan tomorrow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrahamC Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 do you have a concrete slab on a north facing window? I got a SolaVenti 70 that I might put on the roof of my shed to dry the air, and add a little heat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcon021 Posted January 10, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 No nothing like that. So at the moment I have my room sitting at 38 and the tanks are at about 25-26. A big difference! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrahamC Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 Auckland temperature is 19.5C at present .. and you run your interior temperature at 38C? Or do you have a fever?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcon021 Posted January 10, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 Lol that's in the fishroom To heat the water I have been keeping it high. No heaters in the tanks etc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrahamC Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 That sounds very inefficient. I suspect you would be better off heating the water directly than indirectly using air to water heat transfer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcon021 Posted January 10, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 Yup that sounds correct:) I suspect now that the tanks are at the correct temperature I can reduce the heater temp and that would maintain the tank tempretures. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanmin4304 Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 Assuming that the room is very well insulated (priority one) and your tanks are up to the temperature you want, It will not take much heat to maintain the air temperature and hence the tank temperature. The greater the volume of water you have ,the greature the heat sink you have. When I was breeding heaps of fish The ammonia in the air became a problem so once or twice a day, while working in the room, I used to leave the door open for a while to get an air change. It does not take much heat to get the air back up to temperature. Serious breeders and importers generally load their fish tanks up to the max to reach an economy of scale. Can be risky but profitable. Your overheads in a fish house are about the same for 100 or 10000 fish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jim r Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 I use a portable heatpump set at 30degrees also heaters as a backup in my discus tanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcon021 Posted January 10, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 Agreed Alan. Now that the tanks are at the correct heat I have turned the heater down to about 30. From what I have read the room needs to be 2-3 degrees higher than the temp that you need. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrahamC Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 Just curious... but how many tanks do you have, how many 50-300W heaters would you need if heating each tank individually? And what contingency plan do you have for a power failure in the middle of winter? My guess is that in tank heaters would be able to restore the heat to each tank much faster than by heating the entire room ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcon021 Posted January 10, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 Heating individual tanks would cost a bit and all the wires would drive me nuts. I need to get a gerator or something like that to keep safe in winter. But not every person in Auckland with a fishroom has one Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrahamC Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 What about a flued gas heater in the room?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanmin4304 Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 Carbon monoxide. If the room is insulated very well it costs very little to maintain the heat once the water temperature is up where you want it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueether Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 What about a flued gas heater in the room?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanmin4304 Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 Sorry. I missed the point. The gas burner will produce Carbon monoxide but it will be exhausted. It will however deplete the oxygen. Don't know about the North Island but LPG is not cheap down this way. Very good insulation is the trick then it doesn't take much clean green electricity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrahamC Posted January 10, 2012 Report Share Posted January 10, 2012 A flued gas heater will vent emissions to the outside so minimal risk for CO poisoning. I very much doubt a standard fish room can be made airtight to cause O2 depletion to the point of hypoxia given we also now have a flue. And since water has 4 ppm of dissolved O2, and air has 200 ppm, there's a 2 factors of safety before the fish succumb to anoxia. But you could leave a candle in the room to check :smln: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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