Serious dangers of salt water tanks and any tank

[MitchM]

Originally Posted by mike31154

.....
Only items in my water with a cord attached anymore are heaters & I'm looking for a way to heat the water by other means, perhaps an under tank heating mat, like in floor heating or something. A little extreme maybe, but an idea nevertheless. Other item is a small Aquaclear powerhead feeding my skimmer, but I make sure the cord is above the water surface. In the end, it doesn't matter whether the powerhead or heater is small or large with respect to wattage, bottom line is, they are fed by a 120 volt AC 15 amp circuit breaker & if something goes wrong, that's the potential shock hazard.

Mike, depending on how easy access you have to your plumbing and if you have a controller on your aquarium, you could run a small coil of PEX into your sump and plumb in a home hot water line using a recirc pump.
A guy over on RC did this successfully.

[mike31154]

Originally Posted by MitchM

Mike, depending on how easy access you have to your plumbing and if you have a controller on your aquarium, you could run a small coil of PEX into your sump and plumb in a home hot water line using a recirc pump.
A guy over on RC did this successfully.

Yeah, thanks for that info. I actually read that thread the other day. There've been similar projects over the years, even some where people did the opposite, trying to cool their tanks with coils of piping submerged in the sump, then run underground aka geothermal. Seems like you need to be careful with that kind of set up lest you cook your system by not siziing the thermal mass properly. Can get complicated.

If I ever get my basement sump thing started I may consider something like that. A couple of years ago I tiled the floor at my living room bay window & put electrical heating under the tile. I've been considering putting a run of that under the next project. That is, build a stand, put electrical heating on the surface where the tank will sit, then some nice granite tile. Set the tank on that (and/or sump) & voila, under tank heating. Just not sure if the weight of the tank would be an issue in possibly crushing the wiring below eventually.

But again, I digress. Stay safe with the 'lectrics. Ditch those electric float switches that run your ATO & go with gravity feed & mechanical float valve.

[Zoaelite]

Might not be a bad idea with a smaller tank Mike, the only problems I could think of are; The system breaks, you then have to move the tank to repair it OR the heater develops a hot spot, which in turn creates a temperature differential in your glass possibly shattering it.

Having granite tile under the tank would help prevent the second one by heat distribution.

You also then lack the monitoring capacity of a heater, you do get those nasty wires out of your tank though!

[Doug]

Originally Posted by mike31154

Ditch those electric float switches that run your ATO & go with gravity feed & mechanical float valve.

Would not most of those be 12v such as the Osmolator.

Totally agree in keeping the heater head above water. Something I have done for many years. Only use Ebo and my policy has been to replace them after a couple years with a new one.

[mike31154]

Originally Posted by Doug

Would not most of those be 12v such as the Osmolator.

Yes, you are correct. I'm getting a bit anal. Low voltage is fine, but I've seen some DIYs where folks are wiring electric float switches with 120 VAC running thru them.

[Doug]

Oh ya. I have seen some duzzies over time. And built by lfs to boot. I know this as I owned one many years ago.