Powering A Fish Room

[dylema]

I know you said you don't want to heat the whole room but surely with a reverse cycle aircon it will be fairly easy and the temp would be comfortable I would have thought. How warm do the tanks need to be? I would be thinking 25 degrees or so which is a nice temperature. In summer the aircon will be your chiller as well. Just my two cents

 

[DiscusAngel]

yea just get a room temp aircon reverse system, and then have a thermometer in each tank and just keep measuring the readings. so if you set your aicon reverse system to 28deg i would imagine the heat of the tanks is about 24-25. that would work real easily. and oesnt cost to much.

 

[MojoDex]

thank you everyone for your input

if this post has taught me anything its that i really did not think this through properly so ive emailed the guy i ordered the tanks off and changed the order to one 6x2x2 instead then at least i wont have to modify where i live!

but thank you all for showing me the error of my ways

still cant help being very disapointed though

 

[chr15_8]

Yeah, a lot of fish rooms I see are all interconnected via drains and a sump therefore only requiring one big heater to suit their needs. Tolak pretty much hit the nail on the head, you need to make sure you have enough amperage service for the project. For example, using UK numbers, a 100watt heater draws about 0.5 amps (220V x 0.5A). Say you have 20 heaters, that's 10 amps (if they're all on at once). Then add some lighting, say 20 18watt T8s (about 20watts to run), thats another 400watts or 2 amps. Now you're up to 12 amps. Add air pumps and you're approaching probably 15-20 amps of service required. I have no idea what electrical service is common in the UK. In the States, all our breakers and fuses are labeled for the max current they're designed for. Might be worth having a poke around your fusebox/breakerbox.

we normally use 32 amp breakers on a ring (or old styled boards use a 30 amp rewireable fuse)

but om my 150 w heater its says on the back it uses 2.5 amp and to use a 5 amp fuse

 

[andywg]

we normally use 32 amp breakers on a ring (or old styled boards use a 30 amp rewireable fuse)

but om my 150 w heater its says on the back it uses 2.5 amp and to use a 5 amp fuse

2.5 Amps at 230V (the nominal voltage of the UK) gives you 575W (Power in Watts = Volts x Amperes). I would be very worried if it is actually pulling all that power.

I suppose it might have a peak load of 2.5A as it first turns on, and some power will be needed for the thermostat, but still... 575W for a 150W heater seems a lot.

 

[vic]

A couple thoughts come to mind.
A concentration of 27+ tanks in an area the size of an apartment/flat bedroom is going to put a whoping strain on the structure. I would suggest that you check this out before proceeding, that weight load will likely overload anything but a main floor that does not have a basement beneath it.
As far as altering the wiring and based on the assumption that the flat is rented I would suggest that you have not right to be messing with the wiring ie. extending additional circuits, making any modifications to the electrical pannel, etc.
Furthermore, electrical alterations that are not completed under a permit will likely nulify an insurance policy.

 

[SkiFletch]

we normally use 32 amp breakers on a ring (or old styled boards use a 30 amp rewireable fuse)

but om my 150 w heater its says on the back it uses 2.5 amp and to use a 5 amp fuse

Are you serious? How many "rings" are in a typical house or flat?

 

[MojoDex]

A couple thoughts come to mind.
A concentration of 27+ tanks in an area the size of an apartment/flat bedroom is going to put a whoping strain on the structure. I would suggest that you check this out before proceeding, that weight load will likely overload anything but a main floor that does not have a basement beneath it.
As far as altering the wiring and based on the assumption that the flat is rented I would suggest that you have not right to be messing with the wiring ie. extending additional circuits, making any modifications to the electrical pannel, etc.
Furthermore, electrical alterations that are not completed under a permit will likely nulify an insurance policy.

in my last post ive said im not doing this anymore if you read it. and if you read my sig it says i have concrete floors also just to clarify i own the place i dont rent it

and as for work done under a permit i beleive that only applies to gas appliances in the UK

 

[andywg]

Are you serious? How many "rings" are in a typical house or flat?

Historically 2, one for upstairs, and one for downstairs. Our two storey flat has one ring for the kitchen, and one for everywhere else.

Nowadays there are starting to be a few more. Often the kitchen is a seperate ring due to the amount of appliances in there, and some people ring off the main living room due to high power audio visual kit in there.

 

[Lateral Line]

My house also had 2x30 Amp rings, one for each fllor, and 2x5 Amp rings for the lighting load, one for each floor. It also had a seperate 30 Amp ring for the kitchen run in 6mm cable. Each ring was wired to a star earth. The distribution was via cartridge fuses. There was no earth leakage breaker.

It was always possible to do all your own domestic wiring, indeed, I often did, but I believe that recent legislation means that an authorised installer must now carry out the elctrical work.

Here in Denmark, the wiring is not based on rings, rather there are a whole herd of 10 Amp fused spurs. The kitchen has it's own supply which is 3 phase. Correspondingly, high current items like the cooker have 3 phase connections. Very little is earthed here, but an earth leakage breaker is compulsory. Due to the huge volumes of stupid rules and regulations that dog everything in life here, nobody would dream of rewiring their own house!

 

[andywg]

It was always possible to do all your own domestic wiring, indeed, I often did, but I believe that recent legislation means that an authorised installer must now carry out the elctrical work.

Close

You can still do your own if you want, but you now have to have it certified by a qualified person before selling the property. Of some note is just how close to impossible it is to become a certified person without already being in the trade.

If you have owned your house since before the regs came in (2005/06?) then you can always just state any works were carried out before.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

(SkiFletch @ May 30 2007, 03:41 AM)
Are you serious? How many "rings" are in a typical house or flat?

Historically 2, one for upstairs, and one for downstairs. Our two storey flat has one ring for the kitchen, and one for everywhere else.

Nowadays there are starting to be a few more. Often the kitchen is a seperate ring due to the amount of appliances in there, and some people ring off the main living room due to high power audio visual kit in there.

we've got 4 i think, one for sockets upstairs one for sockets downstairs, one for lighting upstairs, one for lighting downstairs.

if we convert our attic we'll have to put another 2 in which is a royal PITA as we've got to get a new fuse box, ours can't take any more rings.

thank god Ian can do the work and we're friendly with sparkies to get it all certified cheap!

 

[andywg]

Hmm, I neglected to mention lighting circuits, though due to the lower load these can quite often (in older places) be spurs rather than rings.

Are you sure you would need another ring for the attic MW? I seem to recall a ring can have as many sockets as you like provided it is over a floor space of 100 square meters (though I may be well out, been ages since I covered any electrical regs). So long as your uptairs is seperate from your downstairs, it is unlikely that the upstairs will get over 32A (7,360 Watts).

Mind you, newer fuse boxes are always nice. Our one is so old you cannot buy the fuseholders for it any more, it is that obselete...

 

[Miss Wiggle]

i'm not at all sure (as you could probably guess) that's just what Ian's said...... unlikely to be doign the attic for a year or so anywy it's just a pipe dream at present and depends on weather we're gonna move to canada, when, if i get a new job soon and how much money i inherit wit my grandma's estate is finally sorted! lol

Both our rings have shed loads of sockets on, Ian re-wired the house not so long ago as things kept nearly blowing up due to dodgy wiring. we had 8 tanks at the time and made sure there were more than enough sockets for them all, got 16 sockets in the bedroom alone! So quite possibly not enough room for any more on them.

I'll make sure Ian checks at the time though

 

[SkiFletch]

Wow interesting, our electrics are way different then. Not only do we use a mix of 110VAC and 220VAC, but all construction since probably 1965 or 1970 has been with earth grounded breakers. My large 3-bedroom apartment has 10 breakers on it. 2x220V 30A (one for the stove, and another for an electric dryer in the basement), 3x110V 20A upstairs (one for each bedroom), 1x110V 10A for the two bathrooms, 2x110V 20A for the living room and dining room downstairs, 1x110V 20A for the kitchen and basement, and one un-labeled 110V 10A one that I'm honestly not sure what it does, maybe the sump pump?

Looks like we really break up our service into much smaller units here in the States. Oh, and all work needs to be done by a liscenced electrician, AND the house needs to be inspected by one before selling it