Heating a Tank in Cold Climates

[loganlax07]

I'm curious what the trade off for cost/efficiency would be to run an aquarium heater hard with room temp in the 50's vs keeping the room temp in the 70's.

Living in MN I would like to let me heat go down into the 50's during the day while I'm at work to save on utilities. However, I'm concerned that will just cause my electricity bill to rocket up with the tank heaters being run so much.

I live in a 800 sq ft condo and have a 10 gallon nano. Tank temp is 78. Current heater is a 25W but I am having to upgrade to a 50W as the 25W is unable to keep the tank at 78 if room temp is below 70.

Anyone have experience with this?

 

[jml1149]

I'm not sure what you pay for electricity, but I'll bet a dollar the cost of running a 50W heater full time, 24/7, 365, is a lot less than keeping your room temp up in Minnesota.


50*24 = 1.2kWh per day, I pay like 12 cents a kWh in CT, so 1.2 * 0.12 * 30 = $4.32 a month to run the heater. I bet you'd pay that in a day for heat.

 

[loganlax07]

In the coldest months I'll spend roughly $45 a month on heat. Keep in mind this is a small condo.

I pay 16.5 cents a kWh. So 1.2kWh*.165*30= $5.9. So you are absolutely correct! Even running it non stop will only be a few $$$.

Thanks for the formula!

 

[Trex]

You will have to factor in the price of natural gas and electricity when you get back home from work to heat the place back up. Think you will find that you end up spending almost the same amount of money compared to if you kept the place around 65 while you were at work.

Do you have any shared walls? How old is the condo? In a fairly new place, with good insulation, 65 could be maintained with very little heat added.

 

[kingston.buck]

+1 to trex comment. Plus the colder the room the more evaporation that's going to take place in your nano not sure if it's a huge difference for your tank or not but I notice my tank 75g goes through more top off water in the winter when I leave my house at 65 versus 78 in the summer.

 

[Brew12]

You will have to factor in the price of natural gas and electricity when you get back home from work to heat the place back up. Think you will find that you end up spending almost the same amount of money compared to if you kept the place around 65 while you were at work.

Do you have any shared walls? How old is the condo? In a fairly new place, with good insulation, 65 could be maintained with very little heat added.

This +1!

Typically, the only way dropping your temp more than a few degrees during the day pays off is if your home is very energy inefficient. Otherwise it takes almost as much energy to heat it back up as you saved by letting it drop.

It won't hurt much to try since heating your aquarium won't cost much but you may not save as much as you expect even if you didn't have an aquarium.

 

[becks]

Mine is in a cold room in England, sometimes it can hit 10c without the heating on all day, I have two 150w jager heaters that maintain my temp at 25.9 the lowest it gets is 25.1. I have glass covers on the top plus the pumps, uv etc all add a little heat to the water. There is a calculators online that will give you a estimate of heating requirements and for some reason jäger heaters rate theirs higher than others on the market, but so far what they sized for my tank is working fine.

 

[kashman100]

Would be best to add a 25 watt instead of changing to a 50 watt. You could run that way year round and would be less likely to fry your tank. If the 50 watt got stuck on in the summer it would be bad

 

[loganlax07]

Would be best to add a 25 watt instead of changing to a 50 watt. You could run that way year round and would be less likely to fry your tank. If the 50 watt got stuck on in the summer it would be bad

+1 Though I have a reef keeper to monitor temp and if that fails, I still have the backup of the built in heater thermometer. The plan is to use the 50w as the main heating element and the 25w as a backup in case of failure. When I switched from my 93 gallon to this 10 I was very surprised how quickly the temp drops with such a small volume of water!

 

[loganlax07]

You will have to factor in the price of natural gas and electricity when you get back home from work to heat the place back up. Think you will find that you end up spending almost the same amount of money compared to if you kept the place around 65 while you were at work.

Do you have any shared walls? How old is the condo? In a fairly new place, with good insulation, 65 could be maintained with very little heat added.

The condo is nearly 30 years old, has decent insulation (windows need work) and shared walls. However, I have three unheated garages under neath that seem to suck heat straight from the floor (counterintuitive since heat rises). Its currently 18 degrees here and my temp is dropping at about 5 degrees every 7-8 minutes when the heater is off. I'm not sure if that is good or not???

 

[Brew12]

The condo is nearly 30 years old, has decent insulation (windows need work) and shared walls. However, I have three unheated garages under neath that seem to suck heat straight from the floor (counterintuitive since heat rises). Its currently 18 degrees here and my temp is dropping at about 5 degrees every 7-8 minutes when the heater is off. I'm not sure if that is good or not???

Umm.. that is horrible!!!!

You are probably better off letting your place cool down.

 

[Waterjockey]

You do save on energy by letting the temperature drop when you aren't there. One large factor in the rate of heat transfer through materials is the difference in temperature. Keeping the place warmer while not there keeps a higher rate of heat loss through the walls, windows, etc. The lower temperature difference slows the rate of heat loss. I am sure there are spreadsheets all over the place you can plug numbers into.
Every start on a forced air gas or oil furnace is wasting fuel just starting as well. Colder room = less starts.

 

[becks]

Might be cheaper in the long run to insulate the garage ceiling, under the floor than heating throughout house so much. And look at other insulating methods else where

 

[loganlax07]

Might be cheaper in the long run to insulate the garage ceiling, under the floor than heating throughout house so much. And look at other insulating methods else where

Unfortunately only 1 of the 3 garage spaces is mine and they are all finished. So I'd have to tear down sheetrock which is definitely not worth the effort. Instead, when I replace my carpet in the next couple years, I'll be sure to put down some nice thick carpet padding.

 

[loganlax07]

Umm.. that is horrible!!!!

You are probably better off letting your place cool down.

Ha my thoughts exactly. dang these cold MN winters...

 

[Waterjockey]

Ha my thoughts exactly. dang these cold MN winters...

I live in Ontario Canada and you are about a 10 hour drive *north* of me

 

[Brew12]

Ha my thoughts exactly. dang these cold MN winters...

I hear ya. I'm a Chicago boy at heart but my wife is from MN. My mom recently remarried and moved to MN also, so I'm very familiar with the weather! One of the reasons I live in the south

I'm just shocked at the poor insulation. If it is 32F outside I can turn my heat off and my temp will drop around 3F per hour.

 

[JayC]

Just to give everyone a 'heads-up' pertaining constantly raising and lowering your thermostat in general.... it's a huge misconception that you're saving any money by doing so. It's all based on 'radiant energies' and properties thereof. You're better off leaving everything alone and constant, irrelevant as to your personal preference as to room temp and reef temp.

 

[ahammer]

50 watt heater! I keep my tanks in the garage with 1200 watts of heating during the winter.

 

[JEREMY82]

When your not doing much throw a coat on start dropping the house temp and monitor your tank temp. this will let you know when the heater is struggling and if it can handle it .. I would probably go to a depot store maybe get some 4 mil poly and clear tape and tape some windows off ,the garage ,if you own the house you can see if some one can blow insulation in between the joyces .