Juiceman Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 Looking for a math wiz or someone who has learned from experience. I have a 200g tank which uses a 1/3 hp jbj chiller during the summer and 2 300w heaters during the winter. I recently had solar installed and am trying to decide which would use more power, the house AC/heat , or the reef Chiller/heaters. Currently I don't let my AC go higher than 77 during heat and lower than 65 during cold when we're not home. Would turning my AC and Heat to temps that would cause them to run less but make my Chiller and Heaters work more be any different in energy use vs just leave the Thermostat on the house alone? Anyone tested this before or have any thoughts?What temps do you all keep your houses? Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gig 'em @ NDstructible Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 Do you have a gas heater or electric in your home? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 For cooling if you can avoid using a chiller your house AC will work less. A 1/3 hp chiller is generating roughly 250 watts of heat your house AC has to get rid of. For heating I'm inclined to think using an aquarium heater to keep your tank warmer than your house would use less electricity than keeping your entire house at a higher temperature. How well insulated the house is and the square/cubic footage will be factors. Another consideration is evaporation and the associated humidity levels which may or may not be issues for some people (for example I prefer a higher humidity inside in the winter). If an aquarium is warmer than the room it's in heat loss to the room will increase evaporation which helps cool the tank which may cause an aquarium heater work more. If an aquarium is cooler than the room it's in the heat absorption by the aquarium will reduce evaporation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juiceman Posted January 4, 2018 Author Share Posted January 4, 2018 Do you have a gas heater or electric in your home?ElectricSent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juiceman Posted January 4, 2018 Author Share Posted January 4, 2018 For cooling if you can avoid using a chiller your house AC will work less. A 1/3 hp chiller is generating roughly 250 watts of heat your house AC has to get rid of. For heating I'm inclined to think using an aquarium heater to keep your tank warmer than your house would use less electricity than keeping your entire house at a higher temperature. How well insulated the house is and the square/cubic footage will be factors. Another consideration is evaporation and the associated humidity levels which may or may not be issues for some people (for example I prefer a higher humidity inside in the winter). If an aquarium is warmer than the room it's in heat loss to the room will increase evaporation which helps cool the tank which may cause an aquarium heater work more. If an aquarium is cooler than the room it's in the heat absorption by the aquarium will reduce evaporation. The chiller is outside.1900 square foot with only the downstairs in question on its own thermostat.Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isaac Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 w/o doing the math, i can tell you using ambient temps vs something in the water is not as efficient. The thermal conductivity of water is .58 (W/m K) Watts per meters kelvin. the thermal conductivity of air is .024 (W/m K) Watts per meters kelvin. water conducts heat 24.17 times faster than air does. damnit, i did the math. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gig 'em @ NDstructible Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 Yeah I've got to agree that it has to be a lot more efficient just to heat the tank vs the whole house, especially if you have an electric heater. If you wanted to keep your tank at 77 degrees, you would have to keep the house near 80 degrees to prevent heaters from turning on due to evaporation cooling. That's a lot of air in the house to keep warm to prevent a couple heaters from running in the tank. I usually keep my house in the 60's in the winter and it's not too bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juiceman Posted January 4, 2018 Author Share Posted January 4, 2018 Yeah I've got to agree that it has to be a lot more efficient just to heat the tank vs the whole house, especially if you have an electric heater. If you wanted to keep your tank at 77 degrees, you would have to keep the house near 80 degrees to prevent heaters from turning on due to evaporation cooling. That's a lot of air in the house to keep warm to prevent a couple heaters from running in the tank. I usually keep my house in the 60's in the winter and it's not too bad.So heat sounds like a for sure win. What about cooling?Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juiceman Posted January 4, 2018 Author Share Posted January 4, 2018 w/o doing the math, i can tell you using ambient temps vs something in the water is not as efficient. The thermal conductivity of water is .58 (W/m K) Watts per meters kelvin. the thermal conductivity of air is .024 (W/m K) Watts per meters kelvin. water conducts heat 24.17 times faster than air does. ******, i did the math. Ok, how would that work for cooling? The same way?Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isaac Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 cooling is just a lack of heat.. so yes. but the math above doesnt factor in radiant heats from stuiff in the water.. like pumps/etc. so say you have a pump that runs hot, it might reduce(or increase) that thermal diff between air/water a bit. 2 realwold things: neighbor doesnt have a chiller. depends on ambient. during the summer we had to set his a/c to 70 to get the tank down to 80. thats a crazy amount of relative cooling actually reaching the tank and just making it feel like a fridge in the house w/ the a/c always on. this past week, the hosue heater didnt work well... we had to put an extra heater in the sump. my sump in the garage. my indoor ac/heater has little to no effect. my temp swings are based on the garage temp. so in the winter i need 3 heaters, and in the summer i need a chiller, even tho i have 24v pumps and LED lighting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isaac Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 also, something semi-related to the efficiency. My father-in-law manufactures/sells water chiller for industrial use. When i was helping him early on, we found heater or chilling water (when we ran chiller tests)... around 75-80 the process seems to "slow down." ie. if you are heating from 60 to 90, we'd get like a degree a minute, but once it hit 75-80 range, it slowed to around 1degree per 1.5min. ambient temp didnt really matter much.. if it was below 75, it would slow down on the 75 side of that range, if it was above 80 it would slow down on the 80 side of the range. cooling did exactly the same thing, that same range slowed down again, just not as much... for comparison sake, lets say just 1.25 instead of 1.5 (this was like 7yrs ago, i dont recall the exact numbers, just the temp range). you can reproduce this on your stove. start a boil on ice-water, you'll see the rate change slow down in that same range. (you need one of those instant thermometers) "isaac, stop rambling, what does this mean for my aquarium?" well, we like our tank around 78-80 right? well, based on those tests, we know the thermal efficiently is slightly degraded somehow. Now since we only stay in that range all the time on our tanks, we dont think about it... but this is why if you do the raw math, its gonna be slightly off for our aquariums. i tried looking it up once... i think its based on barometric pressure(ie. weather+elevation)+ambient temp+somethingelse, i cant remember. its pretty cool research, but you can lose a lot of time pinning it down *lol*. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nut_bar29 Posted January 4, 2018 Share Posted January 4, 2018 I live in Texas and I have a tank of 12 seahorses and I don’t use heaters or chillers and my tank stays at 70-72. I do this with just my ac/heater. I keep it at 72 all year and my tank stays at about 70 for most part.Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted January 5, 2018 Share Posted January 5, 2018 Isaac has me beat on the math and thermal conductivity but if your chiller is outside the eliminates the biggest problem I've had with them - heating up the room they're in causing the house AC to run more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juiceman Posted January 5, 2018 Author Share Posted January 5, 2018 Isaac has me beat on the math and thermal conductivity but if your chiller is outside the eliminates the biggest problem I've had with them - heating up the room they're in causing the house AC to run more. Yeah, I moved it outside 2 summers ago for that very reason. Built a shed and fan system for it and everything. Works greatSent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isaac Posted January 5, 2018 Share Posted January 5, 2018 23 minutes ago, Juiceman said: Yeah, I moved it outside 2 summers ago for that very reason. Built a shed and fan system for it and everything. Works great more like a doghouse for it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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