How would you heat small fish room?

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characinkid
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How would you heat small fish room?

Post by characinkid »

Hi Everyone,

I have a small fish room, about 10ft x 6ft and am done with in tank heaters! How would you heat the room?

The room is in the basement, concrete floor, well insulated walls and ceiling.

Looking for something easy that I can set and forget! I've looked at small electric fan heaters, oil filled tanks etc.

What would you think would be the best to give the most consistent heat for the approx 15 tanks?
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Re: How would you heat small fish room?

Post by Jools »

I used oil-filled heaters, but you need something to move the hot air down to the floor - unless you are happy with warmer tanks up top - which I found good to work with.

Another tip, run everything first - if you're using power filtration and heat emitting lights, you'd be surprised how much they heat the water themselves.

HTH,


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Re: How would you heat small fish room?

Post by Bas Pels »

Jools wrote: 28 Oct 2021, 15:43 Another tip, run everything first - if you're using power filtration and heat emitting lights, you'd be surprised how much they heat the water themselves.

Jools
Good tip

I used to have my garage filled with fish, and I did not need any watt for heating

I did need to have the door open in summer - in orderto prevent the tanks turning into fishsoup.

In fact, I have a tank in my house heated by the filtration. It's 3 degrees C warmer than the kitchen where it stands. Water turnaround is 10 times an hour - and I did buy a sheap pump, which needs a few watts too much. But - this is a lot safer than using an extra heater.
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Re: How would you heat small fish room?

Post by bekateen »

Jools wrote: 28 Oct 2021, 15:43Another tip, run everything first - if you're using power filtration and heat emitting lights, you'd be surprised how much they heat the water themselves.
Absolutely true, as reflected by my 40 gallon toilet flush aquarium with the L052. A tank with no heater but it fluctuates from about 68F to over 82F on a daily basis because of lighting and evaporation.

Even tanks in an air-driven fishroom (i.e., a large air pump running many tanks) can be quite warm if the pump heats the air.

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Re: How would you heat small fish room?

Post by AlexPhilip »

I use a quartz space heater. I'm thinking of going radiant heat next year though.

It's about $100 a month to heat a 12x12 room right now. In the armpit of America where outdoor winter temps are -20 to 20 degrees if that helps.
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Re: How would you heat small fish room?

Post by characinkid »

Very useful replies, thank you all.

Think I’m going to go with a small oil filled and a small fan to keep the air moving and see what happens 👍
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Re: How would you heat small fish room?

Post by MarcW »

Another set it up and see recommendation here.

I have a single linear piston air pump on a ring, the piping of the ring gets warm from the friction of the air, there is a single sump pump for my large tank, and a basic dehumidifier. As well as a handful of low powered LED lights and small powerheads. The room stays warm enough year around without any heater, room or submersible. I can even not bother with insulating the roof window/skylight, on some very cold winter days the room does cool down a little more than I'd like, but unless it's a very long, very cold spell the water doesn't have long enough to cool much.

As Jools mentioned any fish needing higher temperatures just go into the tanks higher up. I do have an oil filled electric radiator which I used to use, before realising it wasn't needed!

I'm in the south of the UK so it rarely stays below 0c / 32f for long over winter, but has been down to -10c / 14f on a very rare occasion, but only as a maximum overnight low, nothing sustained.
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Re: How would you heat small fish room?

Post by koolrambo »

as been said heat the room i used a wall mounted air heater at 33c this give me 25c/28c tank water depending where the tank is in the room top tank are warmer.
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Re: How would you heat small fish room?

Post by Shane »

I have my blower (which operates the filters on 9 tanks) mounted on top of my highest tank rack. It sits three inches below the ceiling. This way it is constantly pushing the hottest air in the room (i.e. near the ceiling) back down through all the tanks. Our thermostat is set at 71F (21.6C) but my unheated tanks never dip below 75F (23.8C).
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Re: How would you heat small fish room?

Post by Viktor Jarikov »

Some good ideas here from the more experienced peers: https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/foru ... nd.739575/
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Re: How would you heat small fish room?

Post by Jools »

Viktor Jarikov wrote: 29 Apr 2022, 17:02 Some good ideas here from the more experienced peers
That seems a bit more about ponds than how to heat a fishroom?

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Re: How would you heat small fish room?

Post by Viktor Jarikov »

Right. Thank you Jools. I thought some info was still relatable. For instance on heat pump which is 16x more efficient than conventional electric heaters.
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