Gimmito's 450 gal L-shaped tank
- Thread starter gimmito
- Start date
rygh
Guest
A back-flow valve would not make sense on the design I had in mind. Nothing to back-flow from/to.iani said:
And I was definitely not considering something as hot as a real boiler steam based system.
What I was thinking was a safer variant of some things I have seen on RC.
Of course, finding a design on RC does not make it legal or safe in the slightest bit.
At any rate, if I ever get around to it, I will post the design to shoot holes in.
And yes, it may be a bad idea.
JAR
Guest
I think Ian is right. Our solar subcontractor installed a bad ass German solar water storage tank. It was not UL approved so the city would not give us the final inspection. Had to change the tank to an inferior but UL approved tank. The solar panels have non corrosive food grade antifreeze that run though coils the solar hot water storage tank.
iani
Supporting Member
rygh said:
Well, they don't want to risk contamination of the cold water supply. Can't your water heater still back up into the cold water? Yes, what Chicken did would not pass building code. I've talked to several people regarding this kind of setup. One of them a plumber and one a person that only deals with radiant heat boilers, both said you needed an approved back flow device. I even confirmed this with a building inspector when he stopped to inspect my roof. Berkeley city inspectors deal with everything.
gimmito
Guest
iani said:gimmito said:iani said:
Ian,
You sound like a guy who is getting ready to do a second story addition on his house.
I know this because I was thinking about doing a radiant heat system into the tank. haha. Did a bunch of research in regards to doing it legally.
...thinking ahead about the tank...love it !
sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
I was always curious about what he did, he has a separate heater, one that is one of those point of use "instant" heat systems, however I'm not quite sure where water goes after its heated, I always assumed it just looped back into the system. Either way. The man always trying to find ways to keep the inventive person down!iani said:
sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
gimmito said:.... flip side is I'll need more heaters for the tank.
This is actually an interesting question, and will have a different answer for everyone depending upon their setup. While true LEDs = More heater power, there has to be a trade off to when it'll be less beneficial to run halides.
I've been finding out that for an "equivalent" amount of light, I don't need as many LEDs as popular belief says. Mostly because I arrange my LEDs in groupings to light corals, and not so much the sand bed/bottom of tank. So one thing I see a lot of people falling into a trap when making LED setups (or buying them) is they treat them like metal halides in that they want an "equal" amount of illumination everywhere in the entire tank, where the only real difference in light power comes as you go higher/deeper in the tank. Looking at my tank, I have two halides, in a super cool Lumenarc reflector, and the thoughts that are going through my mind is "god look at all that wasted light". Yes it is heating the tank, but not all of it is. especially considering I have a much more wide open rockscape. So if I did make the switch to LEDs on the main tank using Mike-Modules (patent pending), I could arrange them such that the rocks where corals are is where the majority of light power will go, I'll get just as much light energy (assumed, as I don't have a QFM) I'll just be focusing that light energy where its most needed.
On my anemone tank in the past I've run a single 175W light bulb over it, 24" deep, 24x32" foot print, I've been fiddling around with placement of corals (and those god damn anemones that are moving around), and find that over the anemones I have 9 LEDs, or 22.5 watts, the rest of the corals get 10LEds, or 25 watts, so I'm using 3.7 times less power on light, am I using that much more heater power? Somehow I don't think so, simply because the halide will be on at most 1/3 of the day, and its on in the day time, so there's no way I can be using 3.7 times as much power on heating. Move to a setup like Jon's where there's a fishroom that holds the heat in (insulated) once a tank gets up to temp, and heats the ambient air to the tank temp, you're not going to lose as much heat at all, less water evaporation too if you don't need to use fans to keep it cool.
Overall, things to think about.
sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
Says something about how insulated your fishroom is, I use damn near 1000W worth of heaters on my 180 (probably closer to 220 total volume)
sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
This is the part that confuses me the most, maybe because I've been an urban (or at least suburban) dweller my whole life. I can't think of any part of the home that requires (by law) some sort of maintenance checks.iani said:
sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
Well Tunzes are low power, so they're not really doing much as far as heat to the tank. Can't remember the return pump(s) you went with, I use one that's like 40-50 watts or so... which is the same as having a 40-50 watt heat on 24 hours a day. So if you have a really high powered pump 150W or more, it can add significantly to your heat, but with the size of your tank not enough to worry about.gimmito said:Yikes ! I'm sure a internal return pump and all the Tunze pumps are keeping the tank toasty also.