Under tank heating

[quintessential]

Ok just got the idea off "afishinacage" don't want to highjack the thread but.......

Has anyone tried this, I was thinking of actually installing a small central heating boiler in my soon to have fish house. But instead of a radiator and space heating the room I could run a series of copper tube under a row of tanks and have a more direct heat input. What do ya think?

any good or what?

 

[ncjharris]

A good idea, but a few things spring to mind.

1 - copper piping is quite expensive and takes a fair bit of work to bend, solder etc.
2 - if the piping just ran under the tanks then the heat exchange between the pipe and the tank would loose some of the efficencey.
3 - how would you control the heat of individual tanks, for medicene treatment etc.

I think it would be a cost effective way of doing it though, if you don't mind the temps of the tanks the same.

 

[quintessential]

Ok ncjharris I see where you are comming from but you would only need one water temp sensor to open and close a 2 port valve. That would sort out the basic heat level, then should you require any hotter tanks you have a choice of either small electric heaters or make the valve a 3 port and run a seperate pair of pipes under a seperate bank of tanks.

The install is just basic plumbing anyone can do that if they use yorkshire fitting that are pre soldered.

It might work and it would certainly be cheaper to run.

 

[ncjharris]

Thats a good point, I didn't consider running the pipe at a base temp and using a submersible heater in each tank to 'fine tune' the individual temperature.

 

[Lateral Line]

To be honest, I don't think it will make much difference in a well insulated fish house. Space heating is the normal solution, but running the pipes under the tanks will basically turn the tanks into radiators which will space heat.

I think I would space heat to the minimum you require say 24C and then add extra heater/stats to the tanks you want warmer.