Inline heaters?

[sean-820]

Im planing some smaller (under 10g setup in the future and I have a couple options like a 5.5 AIO, nanocube...

 

My latest thought is a 7.5g rimless cube with a par38. The Idea of this tank is to practically have no equipment shown so my idea would be to drill the bottom and attach it to my eheim 2217 cannister that I already have. I would do a sump but that would mean the intake would have to go to the surface and I dont want that as I want it totally hidden behind rockwork.

 

If you are confused look here:

Another nanoreef tank

^In this they put a heater in the cannister but I don.t want to do that.

 

So my 2 questions are:

 

What heater would you do for this setup? A traditional heater is out as theres no where to put it other then in the main tank and im not doing that so my other option is an inline heater. The problem I am finding is the only inline heater im finding is hydor ETH which the smallest is 200W. Im sure this would work but would this be too big and possibly dangerous on a 10g water volume (display plus cannister)? Ideally I could get some heater mayby 100W but im not sure if any even exist inline.

 

 

The second question is with an evil par38 over the tank what would the best hight above the tank and what should the optics be for optimum preformance?

[evilc66]

Hydor inline units are not bad in price. 200W is overkill for such a small volume of water, but not out of the question. The best thing to do would be to use an external temperature controller with the heater, like a Ranco controller. That will shut the power off to the heater in the event of a failure, and is much more reliable than the temperature controller in the heater itself.

 

The reason the wattage is so high on heaters like this is because the volume of water that is surrounding the heater is low, and the flow is much higher than it would see in a tank. The higher wattage allows it to heat the water up faster.

 

If you don't want to go as high as 200W, there are ways and means to DIY your own inline heater. Here is an example:

 

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/diy/3625...heater-56k.html

 

As for the PAR38, all lens options can work. It's all dependant on how high you want to mount the lamp.

[Deano]

Hydor inline units are not bad in price. 200W is overkill for such a small volume of water, but not out of the question. The best thing to do would be to use an external temperature controller with the heater, like a Ranco controller. That will shut the power off to the heater in the event of a failure, and is much more reliable than the temperature controller in the heater itself.

 

The reason the wattage is so high on heaters like this is because the volume of water that is surrounding the heater is low, and the flow is much higher than it would see in a tank. The higher wattage allows it to heat the water up faster.

 

If you don't want to go as high as 200W, there are ways and means to DIY your own inline heater. Here is an example:

 

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/diy/3625...heater-56k.html

 

As for the PAR38, all lens options can work. It's all dependant on how high you want to mount the lamp.

 

I looked at that DIY in-line heater, pretty cool idea. Never used one but I would think you would want the heater and pump on the same power circuit. Would hate to see the pump quit or a power outage on the pump, then the heater heats up and if the pump restarts and cool water hits it the thing it will explode. Of course you could use a Titanium heater.

[sean-820]

Hydor inline units are not bad in price. 200W is overkill for such a small volume of water, but not out of the question. The best thing to do would be to use an external temperature controller with the heater, like a Ranco controller. That will shut the power off to the heater in the event of a failure, and is much more reliable than the temperature controller in the heater itself.

 

The reason the wattage is so high on heaters like this is because the volume of water that is surrounding the heater is low, and the flow is much higher than it would see in a tank. The higher wattage allows it to heat the water up faster.

 

If you don't want to go as high as 200W, there are ways and means to DIY your own inline heater. Here is an example:

 

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/diy/3625...heater-56k.html

 

As for the PAR38, all lens options can work. It's all dependant on how high you want to mount the lamp.

thanks alot. Do you know of any other brands of inline heaters? Good thinking with the controller. I may go the inline route with a controller that way theres still another saftey if the heater fails. Im abit reluctant to do diy but those do look rather easy to do and look good. Plus if I did diy it would save a bunch of money compared to a inline and controller.