Heating A Fish House

[the flying graysons]

I've had a fish house running for a few weeks now in a large summer house type building next to my house.

I've got electricity in it, and i'm currently heating each tank individually with aquarium heaters.

At the moment theres a 200 litre tank split into 2, and 2 smaller 50 litre stand alone tanks running, but i'm about to get more.

I'm wondering if its going to make more financial sense to heat the room and not the tanks, ie get an oil filled radiator?

The fish house is insulated, so heat shouldnt escape, i'm just thinking it will be hard to judge how warm it needs to be to keep the tanks at the right temp?

 

[CezzaXV]

I'm guessing a thermostat would be the ideal solution?

I would have thought it would be cheaper to heat a fish room that way than with individual heaters, as long as all your fish will be happy at the same temperature. If not, I guess you could heat the room to the lowest required temperature, then keep heaters for any tanks which need to be warmer.

 

[BigbruiserAl]

i would be worried about were we live mate, being in the NE it can get chilly and if we have another winter like year before last will 1 heater be able to keep the whole room warm?

 

[tomtomtom1230]

Some of the newer systems, I imagine are pretty quite efficient. Not entirely sure but I can almost guarantee warming your summer house will be much, much cheaper than heating each tank individually.Especially if it gets to winter, and it's as cold as it was before. The heaters will be on probably more than half the time.

 

[OldMan47]

As long as your heating system is only used for the fish room, it is often far cheaper to heat the room than to heat individual tanks. You put the fish that need warmer temperatures on the top rack and the ones that need a bit cooler on the bottom rack. Then you heat the room to a perfect temperature for the middle rack. Yes people with stand alone fish rooms often have tanks on several levels on a rack.

 

[nicolaisam]

I have 29 tanks in my fishroom.Its a 7ftx8ft shed with 100mm of insulation in it.
Room is at 26.5 degrees.

I am useing 2x 4ft greenhouse heaters,these are controlled my roomstat.heaters are 240w ea.

some of my tanks have small heaters in them aswell,as these are 29 degrees for Zebra plecs and Discus.but i didnt want the room that hot.

I did think about useing an oil filled heater,but decided that they take a long time to heat up.so will take longer than a greenhouse heater to heat the room,Also the greenhouse heater will continue to heat after the thermostat has turned off,and could raise the temperature higher than wanted.

 

[Bloodworm]

Go to Walmart and buy an electric heater. I have a Honeywell one at home which heats my whole downstairs. You can buy a good one for about $75 to $90. Mine goes to 82 degrees. I did it in my upstairs bedroom once on 81 degrees, and the water temperature stayed about 79 degrees.

 

[BigbruiserAl]

He is in the uk