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Heaters in overflow?


dmatt56

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First, Happy New Year everyone!

 

I recently upgraded my heaters to Eheim Hager 250w.

 

Boy am I glad that I did! I moved my old heater to my mixing Brute garbage can, and we heard a loud POP on Monday. It ended up being the heater exploding! Luckily it was self contained in the can.

 

These Jagers are long! They do fit in my sump, but it's tight.

 

What are the pros and cons about placing heaters in the overflows?

 

Thanks

Matt

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I think the biggest con is the timing...your going to have alot of heat loss from the overflow through the sump before getting back to the tank...

Also, I'm not sure if when your power cuts out how much water is left in your overflow? Wouldn't want it to be exposed...

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Was my first thought also... the water being absent from there, in case of a power outage.... all though, it does all depends how your tank, is set-up. But sounds iffy.lol

Edited by TheyCallMeMr.703
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i thought placing a heater in the area with the largest body of water would create a more stable temperature? i place mines in the display even though it has not kicked on one time.

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I think Kim hit both the big ticket items on the head. With the fast turnover in the overflow, I'd imagine it would be harder to heat up faster. Also, depending on how your setup, it could leave your heater uncovered... and nobody wants that. Can you find a way to make it fit in the sump? I've packed my sump like a well played game of Tetris.

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If the power goes out, the heater loses power, too. If it's on the same circuit as your return pump, definitely so. You do want to make sure that it stays submerged, though.

 

It really doesn't matter how fast the water flows past the heater. The heating is cumulative and added to the single body of water. You may have some loss of heat but it should be minimal.

 

Another consideration is the point where you monitor temperature to control the heaters. If you measure in the sump, but heat in the overflows and the return pump stops, then you could get uncontrolled heating of the tank as the sump cools. Be mindful of failure scenarios like this.

 

Sent from my Rezound on Tachyon using Tapatalk

 

 

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I always place my heater in an overflow.  As Tom mentioned if the power goes the heater wont be on however to be on the safe side mine is also not exposed with the power off on the tank.  I have no problems with it, but all things being equal I would prefer it to be in my sump.

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Redundancy.  I have one in my display, one in the skimmer section of my sump and one in my return section of the sump.  They are all set to 79 degrees and my ACIII is set to cut them on at 79 and cut them off at 80.  I know that folks complain about having one in the display, but if your return pump quits on you and you're not around.......well, at least your inhabitants won't freeze.

Edited by steveoutlaw
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The heater loses power in an outage, but it stays hot for a good while. Depending on the timing of things, it could still break if the water restarts and pours over the now hot glass. You could just set your overflow so it stays full in the event of an outage.

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I'm a fan of keeping it in my overflow.  With a larger tank, it really shouldn't matter that it is draining to the sump, unless your sump is in the basement, or somewhere really far.  In fact, you could argue that this results in a nice gradual change of temp in the DT, which is a good thing, IMO.

 

I also like that I can keep it minimally submerged.  It is quite easy to see what the minimum water level is going to be.  This should be less stressful on the seals of the heater, which are miserably prone to failure over time.

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