external heaters to heat a breeding rack

[Donny Brasco]

This might be a bit hard to imagine but as i have been to a lot of different fish rooms and breeders set ups i know the most efficient way of heating the water is to heat the room,
My current breeding rack lives in my garage which so not looking at putting heating and air con in there.
I have an idea on what i want to build for my next rack and was thinking of making it all fairly inclosed and actually putting a heater inside the rack enclosure and feeding the head to around the tanks with ducting to sort of localise the heat to just in the rack, (will have shutters on above the tanks so the only thing exposed to the outside is the glass)

My question is does any know of any small heater i can use that i can attach some sort of ducting to and feed it around the tank and does anyone think this idea will work?

And ideally in the hotter weather i could use a small air con to do the same thing to help cool the tanks if need be as my garage gets pretty damn hot in summer

[Donny Brasco]

incase you guys where having trouble imagining what i was talking about here is a rough diagram.

so the black box on the ground is a heater, attaching some ducting to the outlet and running it up to each tank and having it exit in each bay which will heat up that area, obviously getting the right temp is going to take a fair bit of playing around but i can sort that out later with thermostatic probed power points (yes its a thing)

hoping to use something like this

i dont think i would need anything huge as its such a small space/volume to heat up.

And i could work something out similar but with an air con for the summer if needed.

[krellious]

I have a single car garage. I stuffed the holes in the bricks with rags and built a semi permanent wall in front of the Rolla door. the garage is heated by a single electric gas colum/bar heater and us the warmest room in the house during winter. heater is on timer to avoid peak heaying bills. I wouldsay it will be more economical then runnung thr small heater you have there.

[Donny Brasco]

yes but we still use our garage as a garage for my misses to put her car, so she is in an out every morning dropping the kids off at school etc, so a temp wall isnt a good idea

[Donny Brasco]

krellious do you have issues with the garage being really hot in summer?

if so what do you do about cooling the room

[Ducksta]

Honestly I can't see it working.
And I think generally those small space heaters are incredibly inefficient to run.

[Donny Brasco]

fair enough ducksta, as for that specific heater its not really want to want to run as im open to options but i was using that as an example.
But do you think the concept wont work at heating the breeding rack/box?

[krellious]

I leave the door open and when vbery hot i use a fan to blow air out. Though i never had a really hot day. Mostly used fan to circulate air.

[Buccal]

If your enclosing around your tanks as the diagram shows and it's correctly insulated.

Then using standard thermostat heaters in each tank would be perfect as they wouldn't come on often if the enclosure was insulated sufficiently.

Saving money isn't so much in the choice of heating,,, but in the choice of insulation and how well it's insulated.

A 1000 liter ibc wrapped in 40mm polystyrene sheets with no gaps can be heated with the smallest size jagar tank heater !!!!

And the heater hardly comes on mid winter in Perth 1-3'c mornings !!!!

If heat can't escape, then residual heat builds up,, and the heater only needs to come on and heat up what slight fraction of heat seeps out.

Insulation insulation insulation

[Josh]

My room was insulated and I used a single 1200w column heater to heat the room.

If the tanks are in an open area, your idea won't work in my opinion.

If the tanks are insulated like Buccal has said it could, but single heaters would probably still be more efficient.

[Donny Brasco]

It's not so much a running cost thing it's more the fact I'll need 5 more power points lol but I guess it is the easiest way to maintain specific temp on each tank fairly easy.

How much heat would be lost from just the front of the glass if everything else is insulated, I know it's hard to work out a figure exactly I guess more so are we talking a bit or a lot hahahha

[Buccal]

Fitting lids tightly will help, but once the colder weather peak kicks in, not much difference is made.

Leaving the face of the tanks exposed won't allow any heat at all to be retained at all during peak cold weather.

You could build like a entire cabinet like structure surrounding the entire lot,,, out of 40mm polystyrene and it can gently be screwed together with 80mm chipboard screws as I do to assemble around ibc's.

Just have the viewing sides as removable panels.

Polystyrene sheets come in 2.4x1.2 meters.

Set a external grade grade light from bunnings right in the center/core of your structure with a timer on it for night and day.

Try to use tradesmans 15-20 amp power boxes for extra power points rather than cheap multi boxes.

All this would Definetely work achieving your expectations.

[Donny Brasco]

awesome thanks Buccal always a great help on this forum i find.

I was thinking about making a basic curtain like front to try and retain a small amount of heat but still remain easy access for viewing and feeding, i was thinking large cuboard doors as well or even a set of sliding doors but i guess removable panels can work, ill play with that idea a bit more i think.

what sort of air pumps are you guys using for multiple 3 and 4ft tanks about 6 in total 3 x 3ft and 3 x 4ft, the 4fts will most likely have dividers as well as im guessing need a sponge in each section and what say 2 sponges in each 3ft breeder?

so lets say around 15-20 sponges in total?

something like this http://www.aquaholicsonline.com.au/hailea-hiblow-hap-100-air-pump-100l-min-6000lph.html

or bigger?

as for the 15-20amp power boxes, my house is fairly new and only has 10amp wiring running through it and all outlets are only 10amp, so not sure if there is much point in using a 15amp power board as ill have to shop the plug off and put a 10amp one on anyway....

[Buccal]

No no the multi boxes in 15-20 amp still comes with standard plugs,, I think the 20 amp has the alternative one also with the fat earth.

But that's no problem,, I just cut the earth down to size with a angle grider,,, but cut it fast and not grind it or it heats up and melts the plug around it.

Because you'll have so many plugs going into same area it's still far more beneficial using these multi boxes as oppossed to the domestic grade power boards which slowly cook over time and starts tripping out all the time when a heap of heaters are pugged into the same box.

If the load is two much, have two multi boxes running from separate power points to share the load.

Both house and multi box has the industrial grade trip mechanisms (safe).

I would say your pump of choice will suffice just make sure your manifold/ring beam connects back into itself as a circle and at least 25mm diameter using poly pipe.

Tap Into the manifold with retic riser connectors then your standard flexi hose can connect onto that.

You need to deliver the full volume of air evenly to each tank without choking the pump and get full economy.

With a bit of thought you can still have swinging doors or sliding doors using 40mm polystyrene still as doors.

Acrylic liquid nails and a canvas like material glued to the polystyrene would creat hinges.

PVC U or C channel profile would create tracks if you went sliders.

[Donny Brasco]

thanks for the info once again mate