Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Starting an article for submission to Pond Boss

Well, I cannot seem to find the original stuff:

Big containers for the aquarium nut:
http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/brs-bulk-calcium-chloride-aquarium-supplement.html

For water heaters, if they are too large or too slow to respond, the heater will be unable to maintain a consistent temperature. The key is the thermostat must respond to measured temperature of the water in a faster time than it takes to heat the water. An over-large heater can warm water very quickly, but you want tom maintain heat once there and rise slowly.

Think of power outtage scenarios: The water cools down while power is out, then the power comes back on and the heater has to raise the temp 20 degrees. Do you want an 1800W heater raising the temp 20 degrees in an hour? Fish wont be happy. If the heater is too large, the temperature will overshoot before it settles.

Here is a hell of a heater series. Now I may have to go buy one.
http://www.marinedepot.com/JBJ_True_Temp...-FIHTTH-vi.html
They say 800W is about right, 1000W even better. Remote temperature sensor is PERFECT as it can respond quickly. Put that upstream of water flow or at halfway point.

Note I was reading the reviews on this and a lot of folks are having failures. Sounds to me like they are susceptible to surges. Use a surge suppressor to your equipment. Again a computer UPS will have protected if not backed-up outlets.

There relatively cheap and it's only weird if it was you making the friction

Check eBay hottub heater popped up many for under $100

Do you think it would be better to keep the tank up off the floor?

It is about 18 inches off the floor. I definitely need to post photos! :-)

Smart man.. I kinda figured/hoped you did

Good point liquidsquid, Thanks!

I can easily program that scenario for a safe temperature rise after a power failure in my system restart sequence.

I'll just add a maintained button to the screen that says "Fish Present" and put a password on it, just in case. Otherwise the heater will operate under normal control.

I have some stuff here that is very impractical for most, and keep forgetting this when I reply

JKB, keep posting the impractical stuff. It helps me think outside the box.

Yes, please!

Sorry didn't read the entire thread as it's a lot of pages but...

Here are some things I've learned about temperature and heaters with small scale systems.

I've had great luck with a 1000 watt stainless steel aquarium heater I bought from Amazon.com for about $100.00 for my 500 gallon systems. If your system is smaller you can get by with less watts.

Without heat my water gets down to 62 F. in the basement in the winter, which would be great for trout but not optimum bluegill, smallmouth bass and yellow perch growth.

With the aquarium heater I can jump water temps to 80 F. if I want to, but usually keep the water in the mid to upper 70's. It comes with a thermostat and if it's de-watered it automatically shuts off. Two seasons now with no problems. I do get scale build up on them ever few months, which I remove with vinegar to get optimum performance.

One of the two schools I've supplied Recirculating systems to, the teacher bought one of those expensive AES commercial aquaculture heaters. She had nothing but trouble with it and it's now a piece of junk that doesn't work. She bought it without asking me, and is now out of over $300.00 bucks for the related equipment and the wiring. Of course the system now has one of the stainless steel aquarium heaters in it I added.

I'm leaning toward a bioreactor biofilter for my next biofilter and will be putting it together in the next day or two. Lower footprint than the RBC and easier and cheaper to build.

I'm a keep it simple stupid kind of guy and I'm always looking to make things simpler. I find many people make things too complicated! And I'm too dumb to understand advanced electronics. Kudos to JKB and others here but it's beyond my grasp.

The bioreactor biofilter is simply a 55 gallon drum filled half way with slightly buoyant specialized plastic media and then filled close to the top with water. A line comes into the bottom from the top of the clarifer drum via a small mag drive pump (sits on top of the filter material under water in the clarifier drum) and the water goes up through the media and overflows back to the fish tank via gravity. A membrane diffuser is is mounted to the bottom of the drum below the media to tumble it.

Detoxifying bacteria grows on the media but the tumbling action scours off old dead bacteria. Of course the diffuser also aerates the water which is a plus for aerobic bacteria which is what you want.

This is not an original idea of mine. I can't remember his name but someone from Ohio here has already done it and sent me the plans to build one a few years ago. They are also sold in the AES catalog at unGodly inflated prices.

As far as a device to clean the water of solids, I haven't found anything better than the clarifer drum and u tube siphon for small scale systems (see Small Scale Aquaculture- Steven VanGorder.) I've added a vertical and horizontal axis spray bar to create the tea cup effect for self cleaning of settleable solids and exercise for the fish, and a center drain where the settleable solids go. All simple and out of PVC and a Uniseal for the center drain.

For those of you that are not familiar with them you owe to to yourself to order Small Scale Aquaculture by Steven Van Gorder. I think it sales for $22.00 on Amazon.com. Easy to read and full of good info.

Bruce you could always use a smaller heater and see what it does for you. I ordered from a hydroponics source so sure ATF has me on the watched list now.

Can this be mounted in an all plastic/poly tank?

If the heater is at least a half inch away from the side with some moving water, you should be fine. Think the plastic wouldn't have a problem until far beyond boiling temps.

You think that's bad? Try ordering fluorescent grow lights.....

(No, they were for tomato and pepper seedlings)

My dad who grows orchids as a hobby in his greenhouse was "raided" several years ago for ordering fish fertilizer combined with some lighting. Apparently, according to the police, these two when ordered together, they are almost 100% guaranteed to be by someone growing pot. They conceded that he was not the only orchid grower that got a surprise.

They were good to him when they realized almost immediately the mistake.

The question is how did the police know what your dad was ordering ?

Big brothers always watching

Yes, just hang it on the side (inside) and you'll have no problems. One of my tanks is plastic and I've also hung it on the inside of my plastic stock tank that holds the RBC with no problem. No melting or damage.

Eric,

My local hardware has a list of things meth makers use to produce meth. If someone buys all the items on the list they have the option to contact local law enforcement. It's such a big problem here it's sad.

What's crazy is all of those items I use in my taxidermy business! Fortunately everyone knows me and my best taxidermy customers are cops...

Very true. I've even had my heater make contact with no problems. Apparently the water keeps the heater cool enough not to melt the plastic. However if one has doubts it's easy to hang the heater away from the plastic.

Cecil, you said you water without heat was 62°F. What was ambient temp in the room?

He ordered the equipment through a mail order company. Apparently they release customers who meet a certain set of criteria for law enforcement. Not sure if some Judge someplace ordered it after a few raids saw the same equipment from the same place. Seems like a pretty bad thing to do to your customer base to me, so I am sure it was an unwilling participant.

Enough thread side-tracking for now...

Most water heaters come with suction-cup holders to the side of the glass or plastic. These loose suction over time, so I found it is best to spin my own, usually pretty cheesy bu effective.

I am currently using this heater in my 300gal Tilapia tank and the water has been staying around 80-85.

http://www.amazon.com/Farm-Innovators-Su...farm+innovators

If you can figure out how to rig up some sort of thermostat I think you would be fine. That is the only issue I have.

I used it in my 100gal grow out tank as well when we had those early cold days but the water would get close to 100 in it.

Everyone on vacation or something?

I made a couple refinements based on this thread.

Temp is handled quite nicely. Only thing left to do is dry cycle with the data logger and possibly some minor tweaking.

Retired my old coffee maker yesterday. It's been acting up a bit. Fill it full of water, and when it is finally done, I get just over half a pot of some really concentrated stuff.

What am I talking about

More coming!!!

About 64 F. in the dead of winter. I was told by a very knowledgeable person that it's typical to have unheated water about 2 degrees below ambient temp. Don't ask me why but I have some guesses.

Right not it's sitting at 67 without a heater. I have a 1000 watt heater on order.