heating large tanks.

[zhewitt04]

I put my tank in the wall. The sump is going to be in the garage. I am worried how to heat it. Would 2-300w heaters be enough?

 

[110galreef]

if your sump is in the garage, it will be close? Unless you can insulate the side a lot and maybe keep the top covered a bit. start with 2 and if you need another add one.

My 250g & 40g frag tank in my basement (68*) (75* fish room)lose heat fast over night.
I use a 300w and it keeps up barely. I run a 300w & a 200w in winter to be safe.

I keep the room the tanks and sump are in pretty warm so not to use so much electricty.

Heater kick on at 77* at around 3 am and are on quite a bit till about 2:00pm a few hrs after lights on. Then the MH's warm it up to about 78.5...then starts to drop off after 10pm till about 3am is when the heater kick back on around 3am again.

Plus all my ctuff is acrylic which insulates alot better than Glass.

 

[BaronVonDango]

Hey, small world. I emailed you about ur craigslist ad, sorry I have been busy as crap lol...
if I were you I would go with 3. Is your garage heated? If so than 2 would be fine.

I know my 300 watt heater works fine for my 130 gallon setup indoors...

 

[jon99]

Start with 2 and go from there. I would always do a inimum of two, even if one is enough. If it goes out for some reason you have a back up.

 

[Reefing Newbie]

I vote two for now as well. If you need more then add one. My tank(125 & 45 gallon sump volume) will heat quite easily in the summer, but now that it is winter it is struggling to heat up to 77, so I am going to be adding another heater. Probably has something to do with the heaters temp censors being off by several degrees. Controllers really help here.

 

[Harriscli]

AGree with the 2. If one gets stuck turned on it won't cook the tank. Just for power cable management I wouldn't go three.

 

[atkinsg]

I have 1000 W of heaters (2 x 300, 1 x 400) in my 125 gal with a 55 gal sump. Tank and sump are in the basement. Its cold in IL in the winter.

 

[MarkGP]

I have 1000 W of heaters (2 x 300, 1 x 400) in my 125 gal with a 55 gal sump. Tank and sump are in the basement. Its cold in IL in the winter.

Same here. I run two 500 watt heaters on a controller for my 125 with a basement sump. Get ready to watch your electric bill go up!

 

[Palancarpets]

I agree also start with two heaters. One other thing to consider if you have not done it also is to insulate the sides of the sump and any other reactor exposed in the cold area, this of course works both ways. I did this in our greenhouse during a real cold snap one year and have kept it in place ever since. I used the foam board on the tanks and foil bubble wrap on the reactors.