180 Gallon Tank Heating a big tank - Looking for advice

[BigBeardDaHuZi]

My 170 gallon is supposed to be finished in a couple weeks and I am gearing up. I was wondering if any of you could help me with a heating question.
What do you use to heat yours? From what I've been reading, the Eheim 300w could handle that kind of volume. I feel like two heaters would be better - in case of failure - but if I use two, one of them would have to go into the tank itself instead of the sump.
On a similar note, it looks like the 300w eheim is really long. Could I put it in the.... what do you call it? ... the box in the corner. The intake box. I would imagine it is tall enough to fit the heater. And it should have a lot of flow. Can you put a heater in there? Or if I use two heaters, could I put one heater in there and one in the sump next to the return pump?

I am hoping the only equipment I have inside the tank is a couple wave makers.

Edit: Any favorite brands would also be helpful

 

[Dippiedee]

Not sure how helpful this is as I'm in the UK so I dont know if these will be available where you are but I have two 300w heaters in my 425. I thought two smaller heaters was better than one big heater. They're 27cm long

https://www.fishkeeper.co.uk/aqua-range-lcd-smart-heater

Edit: obviously your tank is bigger than mine but they have 500w heaters too

 

[86 ssinit]

I would go with 2 heaters. Hygar makes some nice heaters. Also finnex makes good heaters. Both of these heaters have the controls on the cord. So outside the tank. The finnex are the titanium ones. 2 300w should do it. I’m not sure if the over flow will work. It’s just that an overflow so it shouldn’t be full of water. The water flows over and down into the filter. The finnex can be mounted horizontal on the bottom of the tank.
On the eheim I had problems with the last ones I bought. They don’t come preset. You have to adjust them and for me they were just never right.

 

[smee82]

I keep 1 heater in the last part of the sump with the return pump and with the thermometer on the other side of the tank as the inflow and its enough. But if your in the south you won't have Nuǎnqì the indoor heating thing, i cant think of what its called in english so you might need a second heater.

 

[BigBeardDaHuZi]

Ha

I keep 1 heater in the last part of the sump with the return pump and with the thermometer on the other side of the tank as the inflow and its enough. But if your in the south you won't have Nuǎnqì the indoor heating thing, i cant think of what its called in english so you might need a second heater.

Haha. We live in the cold barbarian north. We put heated floors in.
In some ways, I am pretty lucky. Our house is always around 22 degrees

 

[Flyfisha]

170 gallons is 643 litres according to Siri.

i have always been told that one watt per litre is how you work out what heater to use unless you live in a very cold climate.

 

[BigBeardDaHuZi]

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170 gallons is 643 litres according to Siri.

i have always been told that one watt per litre is how you work out what heater to use unless you live in a very cold climate.

I think most of the heaters - except the eheim - would need 600 watts to heat the tank. The eheim is a big outlier because of the glass they use. Hmmm
I would like to find one with a dual thermostat, one that will turn itself off if it starts to cook.

The good heaters run ¥300-400, and I think I will need two
But that is better than dead fish. Bugger

 

[smee82]

Ha
Haha. We live in the cold barbarian north. We put heated floors in.
In some ways, I am pretty lucky. Our house is always around 22 degrees

Where abouts up north, im in tianjin. The place i bought is on the 1st floor so i didnt put the under floor stuff just the ones on the wall. My place stays at around 25/6 in winter so my tank is actually a little warmer in winter then it is in summer. You should be fine with just the one the biggest problem is water changes. I didnt realise one time me water heater had ran out of hot water until my fish went ape and i had to boil water on the stove to get the temp up, Luckily i only lost 2 glass cats the rest survived.

 

[BigBeardDaHuZi]

Where abouts up north, im in tianjin. The place i bought is on the 1st floor so i didnt put the under floor stuff just the ones on the wall. My place stays at around 25/6 in winter so my tank is actually a little warmer in winter then it is in summer. You should be fine with just the one the biggest problem is water changes. I didnt realise one time me water heater had ran out of hot water until my fish went ape and i had to boil water on the stove to get the temp up, Luckily i only lost 2 glass cats the rest survived.

Oof

I live up in Jilin. My province borders North Korea. It gets pretty hot in the summer. And we get a fierce lot of rain in the summer.
In the winter, we get cold fronts swinging down from Siberia, so it gets bugger-all cold. Usually.
The weather has been pretty strange the last couple years though

 

[Fisch]

Not sure if you can get an inline heater? May need two.
I have one in my filter output, and it keeps the temperature pretty steady and evenly distributed.

 

[BigBeardDaHuZi]

Not sure if you can get an inline heater? May need two.
I have one in my filter output, and it keeps the temperature pretty steady and evenly distributed.

That sounds very cool, but maybe hard to get here. Hmmm

 

[AquaticQueen]

I would just go with 2 heaters. It's the cheapest option.

I've heard some pretty good things about Eheim's heaters. I plan on getting an Eheim heater if I ever get a bigger tank.

The wattage of the heater is going depend on what temp you want the tank at.

 

[Fisch]

Cobalt Neotherm heaters are pretty powerful as well. Two of them may do the task.

 

[jmaldo]

Aqueon Pros in all my tanks.
Redundancy without a doubt, I would go with 2x 300w, whatever brand you decide on.

Good Luck!

 

[Redshark1]

I'm using one 300W heater in a six-foot tank.

I used to have two, but have decided it is unnecessary.

I had one stick on and the temp went up, but not by too much.

I had one fail and the temp went down, but not by too much.

I have a small unobtrusive stick-on thermometer on the front top corner and I look at it when I feed my fish twice a day which is easily enough to notice any variation in temp. I have also noticed a change in behaviour of my fish before I thought of the stick-on thermometer.

My house is on the cold side and I keep my tank at 26C.

The brand of my heater is Visitherm and it seems a reliable brand here in the UK. It is the most popular brand. This is the best heater I have had for reliability and they last for many years but everything wears out eventually. I am aware that Visitherm heaters in the states were very different and may not be as reliable.

Good luck. Do what I do and you won't have any disasters with heating.

 

[BigBeardDaHuZi]

Well, a lot of the decision was taken out of my hands. After scouring taobao (Chinese amazon), the only foreign heater I could find was Eheim. There are a lot of Chinese heaters out there, but I have No idea which would be any good. Especially on such a critical piece of equipment. My house runs pretty warm. My biggest fear is a broken heater boiling my fish.
So I went for the Eheim. I got the new 300 watt. It will have to go in the main tank I think. It is pretty long. My plan is to add a second, smaller heater to the sump to ease some of the strain on the big Eheim.
The second heater will be Eheim too, I just couldn't swallow spending that much money on heaters in just one day., so it will have to wait a bit. Maybe next month
Foreign imports can be bugger all expensive.

Thank you to everyone for sharing your experience. Much obliged

 

[faydout]

My biggest fear is a broken heater boiling my fish.

If you can find one there, I'd look at either an inkbird or JBJ heater controller. They generally have 2 outlets so using 2 heaters would be perfect and will prevent one of the heaters from getting stuck "on" and cooking the tank.

 

[BigBeardDaHuZi]

If you can find one there, I'd look at either an inkbird or JBJ heater controller. They generally have 2 outlets so using 2 heaters would be perfect and will prevent one of the heaters from getting stuck "on" and cooking the tank.

That sounds hard to find and absolutely a good idea at the same time. I will look into it. Thanks