Fortunately I do not think I really need to worry about cooling my tank beyond a bit of surface air movement, but I do think I need to concern myself with heating it (150g sump sits on a Minnesota basement concrete slab and I generally keep the inside air temp @ 70-72 degrees).
What follows is is way more thought than probably justified, but after thinking about my initial plan of just dropping 2 500w heaters in the sump both set to 78 degrees does make me a bit uncomfortable with the thought that 1000w surges could come and go all day long. So, as an alternative.....?
I don't know if household heating principles apply to heating a tank, but I would think they would and therefore I would have thought that running the smallest heating unit that while continuously running at a constant speed is preferred to a larger unit that is always firing up and shutting down.
With this in mind, I was wondering how I could determine what size heater could warm/maintain say 500gallons at approx 5-7 degrees above ambient temperature.
This I would designate as my primary heater. For colder days where the heater cannot keep up, a secondary heater capable of making up the few extra needed degrees would kick in if the primary was not able to keep up (i.e. set to start up if the temp dropped 2 degrees below desired temp).
So, if it was determined that a 500w heater could serve the role as the primary heater, a 250w heater may function well as a secondary heater which would only come on occasionally.
I guess this an possibly be taken further where one smaller heater can be set at the optimal temperature, another similar heater a couple degrees lower and a third a few degrees lower than that (e.g. primary 250w set @ 78, secondary 250w set @ 76, tertiary 250w set @ 74)
Thoughts?
tia
- scott -
What follows is is way more thought than probably justified, but after thinking about my initial plan of just dropping 2 500w heaters in the sump both set to 78 degrees does make me a bit uncomfortable with the thought that 1000w surges could come and go all day long. So, as an alternative.....?
I don't know if household heating principles apply to heating a tank, but I would think they would and therefore I would have thought that running the smallest heating unit that while continuously running at a constant speed is preferred to a larger unit that is always firing up and shutting down.
With this in mind, I was wondering how I could determine what size heater could warm/maintain say 500gallons at approx 5-7 degrees above ambient temperature.
This I would designate as my primary heater. For colder days where the heater cannot keep up, a secondary heater capable of making up the few extra needed degrees would kick in if the primary was not able to keep up (i.e. set to start up if the temp dropped 2 degrees below desired temp).
So, if it was determined that a 500w heater could serve the role as the primary heater, a 250w heater may function well as a secondary heater which would only come on occasionally.
I guess this an possibly be taken further where one smaller heater can be set at the optimal temperature, another similar heater a couple degrees lower and a third a few degrees lower than that (e.g. primary 250w set @ 78, secondary 250w set @ 76, tertiary 250w set @ 74)
Thoughts?
tia
- scott -
