Interesting power saving dilemma

[Noddy65]

Hi all

I currently run sumps for all my tanks...5 sumps run the fish room, some have two pumps...on average each pump is using 100 W.

To save power i was thinking of gradually converting most of my tanks to drop side filters run with air...I also have a 100 W air pump going all the time anyway and should have enough air to run the whole room. The plan was to make 3 of the sumps redundant, taking 5 pumps out of the system

I would go from burning 800 W a day down to 300 W, saving me around 500 W a day.

Heres the issue...my sump pumps keep my water at a very nice 22 -24C SO I dont use any heaters at all...if I convert to drop sides therell be no pumps so no heating so Ill presumably have to run heaters...I would then have 17 tanks with no heat (ranging from 3 x 2 to 6 x 2 tanks)....

Does this sound like false economy?

The heaters wont be on all the time and I expect them to not be on much anyway as the water mass is pretty large and the room is well insulated but I could in theory be running 3400 W of heaters (using 200 W heaters). I would expect them to come on mostly after water changes.

So is it more cost effective to run 500 W on 24/7 or 3400 W on occasionally ?

Mike

[cobaltcraig]

Hi Mike I recently got a blower for my fish room

What I understand these things never break down

If you are planning to run on a single air system I think for that reason alone its worth it

But the down side is the noise is like a little wistle noise I am use to it

The real saver in my opinion is to centralise heating

I have sealed my room and run a portable reverse cycle a/con a couple hours during the night in winter This to me saves big dollars

I am running a room with 40 Tanks , and it works for me

cheers

craig

[bwah]

heating is by far the killer when it comes to fish rooms.. good insulation is worth its weight in gold

[Josh]

I always used a collum heater in my room and it works a treat. You can have a thermostate hard wired in and then plug the heater into that. I used a 1200w unit and it was rarely on at all.

Air pumps are the way to go. I have two high blow 40's and they run at about 40w each from memory.

[Link2Hell]

also when heating the room run a fan or

you will develop a thermocline where

the lower area is cooler than the upper

area due to heat rising

[krellious]

Any suggestions on insulating a garage door? contemplating building a false wall with a door for water changes.

[Link2Hell]

if your talking rolla door then that is what you'll need to do

[Noddy65]

Hi Krellious

Ill try and find some pics of what i did...works a treat

[krellious]

Love it. I have a brick garage attached to the house so the work will have to take place inside it. What was the rough cost of material for the job?

[bwah]

shows us the inside

[Noddy65]

[krellious]

nice. Do you do anything to reduce humidity and how do you heat the room?

[Noddy65]

Nope...dont worry about humidity...all the tanks and most of the sumps have lids...no heating...the sump pumps keep the water at 22 - 24 C all year...hence the reason for this post...if i swap to side drops Ill have the heat the water/room so I dont know what will ultimately cost more...running teh sump pumps 24/7 or using heaters?

[YAL05T]

What about the sumps on timers and sponge filters, cut down the amount of time the sump pump runs, the water should stay warm enough if you do a 6 on 6 off system.

[dogboy]

hmmmmm what a quandary....

i had a 2 sumps , then dropsides as well, and 2 lp40s running the air, the airpumps produce a fair bt of heat.

i was talking to someone recently who had a dehumidifier in the room and claims that it produces enough heat to keep the room and tanks at 24 ish and pulls 20 or so litres of moisture out of the room every day.....

IF set up anothe fish room i will run it on dropsides and sponge filters, maybe sumps for individaual tropheus tanks and have eithe a reverce cycle or a dehumidifyer to heat/cool and lots of insulation

the best thing i did was install a 4kw solar system , bills went from 1200 a quater to 380

PS nice looking fishroom mike

[couchy]

My opinion is that sumps cost money to run and do assist with heating, however the safety of air and sump filtration running simultaneously isn't something i'd cut back from.

I use an air blower which adds heaps of heat to the room.

As for running sump pumps on timers, i think this would reduce the life of the pump also fish on sump systems can die if the water flow stops for long periods they become used to the high quality oxygentated water and suffer when it stops.

Noddy after seeing your room i know it would hold temp well. heating the room with an oil heater or similar or a reverse cycle air con would be best. The heaters wouldn't come on too often in your room but i'd reconsider removing sumps as i'm a big fan of sump filtration. Side drop air run filters are great and perform like sumps anyway so its an individual choice on which you prefer also consider maintenance regularity of 3 sumps over individual tank side drop cleaning.

I think you could save a lot of electricity by removing sumps and heating the room not each tank.

I was also lucky enough to install a large solar system when the benefit scheme was at its highest, So i don't mind running sump and air driven filtration.

Hope I've helped not added more confusion.

Cheers Couchy

[Noddy65]

_{Ok...I think Ive come up with a solution...Ive designed an air driven filter with a sponge prefilter and usign K1 media for biological filtration (each litre processes 5 gms of food/day)...Im running one on one of my tanks for a while to see how it goes...Ill post a movie when Iget a chance}

_Mike

[~matt~]

Dogboy, how much was your 4kw solar system? its something im thinking about getting..

Mike im in a similar situation as you ive finally got the chance for a fish room and im in the planning stages still but im undecided on how im going to run it, sumps or air! ive changed my mind so many times already lol

[Squirtle]

Well I went from air to canisters to sumps, so far I have found air is the cheapest but requires more cleaning and depending on size tank you need a few to get decent results, canisters work fine but cost a lot and a fair bit to run, I personally like sumps the best, They dont cost much to run compared to canisters ( cheaper for me as I use big tanks = bigger canisters = higher W) They give the best results bio/mech wise and make water changes can be achieved much faster. I can also get away with less heaters using a sump, The only down side is finding some where to put them, all my stands have been built with canisters/ air in mind so I had a hard time placing them around, as for disease if you use a good QT system everything should be fine, I have also read about UVs being quite a good investment but no personally experience here.

Hope its ok to ask a for some advice here as it may help others, I cant edit it out if need be. Was just wondering if using a room heater is really going to be cheaper then running aquarium heaters? I have close to 3000-4000W of heating from aquarium heaters and I think now that winter is here its really pushed the bill up! The room is half insulated half not so if I did go down the road of heating the room I would want to know its going to be a lot cheaper long term, In my brain heating the heater in order to heat the water is going to take a lot longer then heating the water directly but I could be wrong?

[Ducksta]

The cheapest long term option is decent insulation.

Heating/cooling an insulated room is generally a lot cheaper than running individual heaters on tanks.

[Squirtle]

Thanks Duck, one last one I feel like a thread jacker! sorry!

Whats decent insulation that can live in the humidity? all My tanks have lids but some how theres always water on the roof, and would you bother covering up the bricks or just leave them ( 2 layers )

(^ as for insulation I was under the impression cool room panels but in another thread on the site they say they are not the best, to air tight leading to other issues)

Thanks sorry again.

[Noddy65]

[cichlid meltdown]

u could do a few things.

run solar

or under your tanks its a lil hard if theyve been setup for a while but u could run sum copper under ur tanks buried in sand and connect that to ur hot water system

or

u could cheat the grid.

[cichlid meltdown]

as for humidity maybe a dehumidifier

a fan on a timer say have it on for 3 or 4 hours a day.id put it in the wall though not the ceiling only so u dont draw the moisture up.ask a hydroponic dealer how to dehumidify theyd have sum handy hints and on insulating

u can buy 1hp air cons pretty cheap.u can heat,cool and dehumidify

[CThompson]

Personally I don' t like side drop filters. I like the fact they run on air and are cheap, but I don't feel they move a lot of water. Fish do like water movement too, and the faster the water goes through the filters the better potential they have to clean.

If your room is completely sealed with good insulation, look at a broader picture and consider the issue of cooling in summer. On the stinking hot days that is as important as heating in winter. Reverse cycle air con is a step in the right direction anyway, and if this is used as the umbrella decision, how you run the water through your filters can be sorted out without taking into consideration the pros and cons of losing the heating the immersed pumps are causing.