Tank Heating

[Alan Mallinick]

Greetings all
I may have missed some passed discussion on this subject so please bear with me, but first let me say that it's great to find this resource (the forum ) hopefully someone can answer my questions.
I have built a vynil lined tank and everything is going well, though I am having trouble keeping the temperature from dropping off over the period of about 2 hours which makes long floats a bit of a problem at the moment.How can I keep the temperature up without having to circulate the water?

[Antonio Madeira]

Hello Allan

Your tank must be well insulated .Are you running with a thermostat? the heater should go on and off with the range (offet) you set
ex:33.5 to 34 celcius. I run with a single 350 watt heater.

Antonio

[Alan Mallinick]

Hi Antonio
The tank is insulated with 2inch thick expanded polystyrene.
At the moment I circulate the water through a gas geyser which is very effective for getting the tank up to temperature, but I need to add an electric heater of some sort to keep the temp up.The 350w heater you mentioned, what type is it, and what voltage?
We opperate at 220 volts in South Africa.Not that that is a problem, I could step it down if necessary.

[Antonio Madeira]

I use a waterbed heater that can be found for 220v also (waterbed store). Use also a thermostat probe under the liner and set temp to obtain the correct solution temp. The heater must be placed under the liner tank.

I'm curious about your gas geyser does it come from a boiler?


Antonio

[Alan Mallinick]

The gas geyser is a normal household type with a heat exchanger and a gas burner.The burner only ignites when there is water flow, so when I turn on the pump and filter it heats the water, I can bypass the geyser as well for filtration only.It heats the water at a rate of ± 15 liters a minute to about 60 degrees celcius.I admit its a bit antequated, but at the moment it gets the job done.
I'm looking for someone locally to source a waterbed heater, will let you know how it turns out.
Alan