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heater placement


SaltyIndy81

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Hello All,

I have recently delved into the world of salt water tanks. I have a 75G tank with a sump. I've kept my heater in the same compartment as my pump but have noticed there is still a difference between sump temp and tank temp. Not much but enough to have some concern. Curious as to where others usually locate there heaters.

Thanks

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Ive always wondered what others do also. I have mine in a separate sump with my skimmer. I dont like to have it/them (I have 4) in the same area as my pump. Ive had my water go low due to evaporation and fry a few heaters. I even have a ATO but at some point it will happen.

 

As im planning a new tank, im going to try and hide 2 in the display tank, 1 in the frag tank and one in the sump. I want to be able to run a generator incase of power outage and atleast keep the temp up as easy as possible.

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I don't have a traditional sump...it's an old biocube. So I can hide my heater in one of the rear chambers.

 

I personally don't like the look of heaters in the DT, but if a return pump fails, the DT can fall to ambient room temp. So to avoid this I have one in the DT and one in the sump.

 

Like Atomic said...best not to have in the area of a sump that could ever run dry.

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I only have one heater so the issue of losing the circulation of heated water if the pump fails is something i didn't think of. Maybe i'll look at getting a smaller second heater as a fail safe in the DT. I have another chamber available in my sump. I can find another spot in there .

 

Appreciate the feedback gents

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I have mine in the sump, not in the return section though. That's just a disaster waiting to happen.

 

I'm coming up on a few years for this heater so I'm probably going to replace it soon and when I do I'm going with 2 smaller ones, one in sump, one in the display behind some rock. I have a black back to the tank so it should conceal pretty easily. That'll help should one fail. Even if sump flow is lost the one small heater in the diaplay would cause the tank to take the better part of the day to cool off and my Apex will alert to that long before it's a problem.

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I have mine in the sump, not in the return section though. That's just a disaster waiting to happen.

 

 

Why is this a disaster waiting to happen?

I have one heater in the return section of my sump hooked to my controller. My ATO is also in this section.

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I keep mine with the skimmer.

 

 

The return section is dangerous if the ATO runs empty and the water level drops enough to expose the heater to air..

 

ok that makes sense. I too have the titanium heater like Ryan so it lays flat on the bottom. My return pump would run dry before my heater would be out of water.

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That would be about the only situation where it would be slightly less risky. If it runs out of water though it's not doing anything to heat the tank and the small amount of remaining water in a return section likely won't last long with evaporation exposing the heater to air. Might as well just leave it in the main section of the sump so you don't burn up a heater along with your return pump if an ato failed and you weren't there for a period of time. Depending on the sump I'd think some heaters could get hot enough to do some decent damage if they didnt have an auto off.

 

I had a cobalt neotherm fail and had that thing not been in a foot of water and glass sump I believe it would have easily caught fire had I not removed it as soon as it started to smolder and stink up my house.

 

This really doesn't pertain to typical day to day tank life. Obviously if someone checks their tank like they should it'll never be an issue with regards to ato failure but if there's a failure while on vacation, unexpected stay in a hospital, etc. Never know what can happen and may as well at least try to lessen potential damage.

 

My ato could go dry for almost 3 entire days before exposing the pump to air. I still won't put a heater in the return though.

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I believe Cobalt fixed that issue with their heaters. I've had one for over a year and no problems. Incredible consistency in temp, +/- varies less than one tenth of a degree. Agree 100% about not placing heater on the return section. I'm going to two heaters & still planning to have both in the sump.

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