# Any ideas? Heating water for water changes



## CITADELGRAD87 (Mar 26, 2003)

I have a build thread going on here, I have built a 100G in wall tank with a 60G sump that actually holds about 30-40 gallons in operation. Anyone following the build, please excuse this explanation, but it may help people unfamiliar with my setup understand.

I have a dedicated cold water line in the fish room, as well as a drain inlet for water changes. I got lucky, my house had a 4 by 5.5 foot enclosed dead space adjacent to a fireplace, and there is a drain line running down the wall, and a cold water line I tapped into as well, but the house is finished, I can't run a hot water line to the area.

Water changes are as follows: I shut off the sump return line with a ball valve. I open another ball valve after putting a one inch line into the wall drain. I empty the sump, I put the 1 inch line into the sump, treat for 40-60 gallons, I add 30 or so gallons from the cold water line, and I run the pump to circulate the sump to aid the heater until the water is approximately 77 degrees, then I close the 1 inch line and open the return line, sending water in through the undersand jets.

The problem is that in winter here in soucal, the cold water is about 50-55 degrees. I cannot run a hot water line to this area. It takes me, literally, about 2 minutes to get to the point where the sump is emptied and refilled with cold water, but it takes well over an hour to warm the sump up. Recently, I added a spare heater that I only plug in for water changes, it didn't seem to change heating time much.

In summer, the water is going to be 70+, but for the "cold" months of the year, I would like to figure out a way to heat the water faster. I considered trying to put hot water in the sump from a pitcher, but the "custom" clearances of the in wall do not allow that approach.

Maybe I am already spoiled, the idea of wate changes without moving buckets of water is amazing, it just seems like it takes forever.

Do you think a large, like 300-500 watt heater would aid in this, I would only use it for this heatup duty, then unplug it because I use a 300w finnex and controller for temp control. I think a problem is tank heaters are not designed to rapidly heat the water.

This place is full of great ideas, anyone thinl of anything?


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## 13razorbackfan (Sep 28, 2011)

I had kind of a similar set up on my reef tanks. I used a RO/DI line from my sink to a LARGE plastic tub that housed the water for water changes. It was an automatic system that also kept the tank water from evaporating.

Is there anyway you could have a large tub somewhere to house heated water and then just turn on a small pump to pump it into the sump?


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## CITADELGRAD87 (Mar 26, 2003)

Not really. The concealed room is large, but not that large. There is about 14 inches between the back of the aquarium and the far wall, and that needs to be available for me to move behind the tank. It's too small for a garbage can, which is what I had planned to use before I realized how tight the space is.


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## 13razorbackfan (Sep 28, 2011)

CITADELGRAD87 said:


> Not really. The concealed room is large, but not that large. There is about 14 inches between the back of the aquarium and the far wall, and that needs to be available for me to move behind the tank. It's too small for a garbage can, which is what I had planned to use before I realized how tight the space is.


Is there a nearby room or place where it can be located and just use a small pump with a hose? Just thinking out loud here.


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## pistolpete (Dec 28, 2009)

How about a short funnel and hose to add nearly boiling water from a kettle to your sump. One kettle full will go a long ways toward heating up the water, Just don't have it so hot that it will melt the plastic. large funnels for doing oil changes are fairly cheap.


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## CITADELGRAD87 (Mar 26, 2003)

Razorback, no, nothing close by. The new room is living room on one side, family room on the other. Noplace remotely close to stash the water.

The hot water "beer bong" may be something that I need to try. I used to nuke a regular tumbler glass in a 5G bucket and it would bring it up to the mid 70s right away.


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## sweety (Jan 10, 2010)

I'm not sure about in the US but here in the UK you can get 12V heating elements to go into cups etc to heat water whilst away campimg. I'm not sure if you could use something like that to quickly heat the sump after it has been filled the only thing is you wiuld have to keep an eye on the temp so you didn't boil the water


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## Ruairisdad (Jan 20, 2012)

Hi,

A 300-500 watt heater won't begin to make a dent in reducing the time to a few minutes. Remember water has a great capacity to absorb energy. That means it takes _alot_ of energy to warm it just a little bit. A little High School Science Class arithmetic:

You want to heat 30 gallons of water, by (70-55)=15 degrees F, or 8.3 degrees C.

30 gallons is 113.6 liters, or 113600 ml. Since 1 ml of water weighs 1 gram, that's 113,600 grams of water.

It takes one calorie of energy to raise 1 gram of water 1 degree C. So you need to put:

113,600 x 8.3 = 946,000 calories of energy into the water! That's 3,960,000 joules of energy!

Let's say you want to do this in ten minutes, or 600 seconds. The power needed is:

3,960,000 / 600 = *6600 watts*. That's how big a heater you'd need to do this. An electric heater that big is about the size of some household hot water heaters; it would require a 30A, 240V dedicated circuit just to run it.

I suppose you _could_ run a dedicated circuit that big, and find the room to install a water heater, but that sounds more trouble than just running a hot water line. Running a new line is probably not out of the question. Some people think opening up walls and patching drywall is out of the question, but it's not that big a deal - that's one of the reasons walls are make out of the stuff. Contractors do it all the time when they need to repair stuff.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

*CITADELGRAD87*
A continuous water change system might fix your temperature problem.

You could connect a little needle valve to the cold water line (something like what would be used to run a refrigerator line) and calibrate it to add about *1 gallon of water per hour* into the pump chamber of your sump. (adding 1g of water at 50F to your 160g system at 80F would only drop the tank to... 79.8 - your tank heater would easily keep up).

In order to do this you would need to add an overflow to your sump, and connect the overflow to some kind of floor drain. If you're not on a well, you also might need to figure something out for the chlorine/chloramine. It'd be really neat to configure a $3 IV drip of water conditioner :fish:

Just something to think about.


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## CITADELGRAD87 (Mar 26, 2003)

Ruairisdad said:


> I suppose you _could_ run a dedicated circuit that big, and find the room to install a water heater, but that sounds more trouble than just running a hot water line. Running a new line is probably not out of the question. Some people think opening up walls and patching drywall is out of the question, but it's not that big a deal - that's one of the reasons walls are make out of the stuff. Contractors do it all the time when they need to repair stuff.


I appreciate the information, it appears that a heater solution is not feasible. I didn't think a regular tank heater was going to work.

I do understand that drywall is a temporary cover, you may have missed that I built this 100 into the wall, and it's not a drywall wall, it's original construction tongue and groove wormwood that I cut into. I did this by making a room out of an area created in a space where two fireplaces abut an interior wall.

Two problems with running hot water: It sits on a slab and is bordered by an exterior wall with only cold water in place, a fireplace, a slab under it and the dry (in this area)second floor over it. There really isn't a feasible way to run hot to the area because of the setup, not because I am shy about making holes. I got lucky with the drain and there's a hose bib on the other side of the exterior wall that I was able to tap into, but there's where my luck ran out.

The second problem is a bit more subtle, I just finished the project and painted it about 2 weeks ago. Taking a sawzall to the completed project will not assist me when I want to do the next project and tell my wife "don't worry, I can handle this"

I do appreciate the mathematical explanation in lieu of "you can't get there from here."

Edit, it's really a conveniance thing. It irked me when I did a late night water change and had to wait for the temp to come up so I could go to bed, always a bad time to keep me waiting.

Since then, I have experimented with hot water to speed the process. WIth about 2 gallons of HOT water from the kitchen sink, I can bring the water up in a couple minutes.

On a Saturday morning, I can just switch the water and do something else for a couple hours while the fish try to figure out what happened to the current. The heaters can do it, it just takes a while.


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## Rhinox (Sep 10, 2009)

Well a continuous system would be convenient once set up, as it eliminates the need to do weekly water changes entirely, and also provides the most stable water parameters for your fish. Since it would also solve the temperature problem, I thought it might be something you'd be interested in.


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## Agcichlid (Jul 14, 2006)

Hey there, have you considered a point of use water heater? A little pricey (maybe $200) but perhaps you could find a used one on ebay. Seems like it would work though.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

I have looked at point of use heaters as my water heater is at the far end of the house. What I found made me throw the idea out, though. To get the quick heat needed, it requires some major modifications. Either a gas line run or a major electrical addition. The electrical seemed best for me but the massive power required made it impractical for a retrofit situation. Adding the additional breakers needed as well as a 220 line the length of the house was running the price up into the thousands. I decided to just wait for hot water.


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## Agcichlid (Jul 14, 2006)

Oh really? I've heard of them but I didn't know they required 220V service. It sounds like the problem will be a tough one to solve. As someone mentioned above, water has a very high specific heat. So either a great deal of time with small amounts of energy will be required or a great deal of energy will be necessary to reduce the time. The second option sounds cost prohibitive/logistically very difficult.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

It depends on how much water one wants to heat. There are 110 v units but they are pretty limited. I just checked at Home Depot for info and their 110 unit only puts out .7 gallon per minute. But then it also draws 3400 watts! So at 120 volts that is drawing a little over 28 amps. I have no circuits for 120 at 30 amps. In my case that would have only served for one faucet, no shower or other use. Not worth the trouble involved for me to go that way.


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## CITADELGRAD87 (Mar 26, 2003)

Rhinox said:


> Well a continuous system would be convenient once set up, as it eliminates the need to do weekly water changes entirely, and also provides the most stable water parameters for your fish. Since it would also solve the temperature problem, I thought it might be something you'd be interested in.


Oh, im interested in it, its a great idea. Im on city water, id have to rig something to treat the water. I have a drain right there, I could run a little pump on a float and everything except chloramines would be really easy.

Just some kinks to work out.


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