Heater question and check valve question - Aquarium Advice

brigoody · 09-24-2007, 11:18 PM

I have finished building my stand for my 90gallon tank. I am new to the hobby, so the advice from this forum has been great. My questions today are concerning placement of the heater. I have a 20x16x10 (15 gallon) sump. I would like to hide the heater and other equipment in the sump, but the 300watt heater is 15 in. long. Should I buy two smaller watt heaters or is it possible to place this one in my built in overflow? Or is there a 300watt heater that is less than 12 in.? Any suggestions?

Next is again concerning my small sump and my worry of overflowing in a power outage. I put a check valve on my return line. When I shut off my return pump to test, other than a very small leak (Is this Normal?), no water was draining back into the sump. Is this a good thing to do or am I slowing down my return pump flow rate? If so, then other than buying a bigger sump, what are my options? It seems like I would have to have a very low water level in my sump to handle the water draining back into the sump in case of a power outage.

I've included a pic of my sump

MSU Fan · 09-25-2007, 04:21 PM

Just so you know, check valves don't work very well for SW plumbing because the salt creep, calcium build-up, etc will basically stop it from working. Sorry!

As for the heater, I don't know of a short 300w heater, so you would probably want 2 smaller ones.

And your sump should always have enough room to handle all the excess water that will drain into it once the return pump is shutoff, regardless of check valves and other items that *may* help. Perhaps an auto-top off would help regulate a lower water level.

animalparamedic · 11-17-2007, 12:31 PM

You could try an inline heater instead... I have the Hydor ETH series and have been very pleased with it - still out of sight under the tank...i just plumbed it inline on the return...
Here's a link for it at Drs Foster & Smith - http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...9&pcatid=11369

Just my two cents, FWIW

h8z2luze · 11-17-2007, 04:34 PM

Those are really cool I think I am going to go with one of those

09-25-2007, 04:21 PM	#2
MSU Fan Aquarium Advice FINatic Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Appleton, WI Posts: 547 Images: 2	Just so you know, check valves don't work very well for SW plumbing because the salt creep, calcium build-up, etc will basically stop it from working. Sorry! As for the heater, I don't know of a short 300w heater, so you would probably want 2 smaller ones. And your sump should always have enough room to handle all the excess water that will drain into it once the return pump is shutoff, regardless of check valves and other items that may help. Perhaps an auto-top off would help regulate a lower water level. __________________ 75g FW Planted Community; 55g African Cichlid 29g Biocube SW Reef;12g AP Mantis Shrimp/Brittle Star 2 Cats, 2 Dogs, 5 Turtles

11-17-2007, 04:34 PM	#4
h8z2luze Aquarium Advice Freak Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Nor*Cal Posts: 385 Images: 12	Those are really cool I think I am going to go with one of those __________________ Working on my 37G to be up soon i hope... The 50G Tank i used to have is in my gallery...

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11-17-2007, 12:31 PM	#3
animalparamedic Aquarium Advice Regular Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Plano, IL Posts: 61	You could try an inline heater instead... I have the Hydor ETH series and have been very pleased with it - still out of sight under the tank...i just plumbed it inline on the return... Here's a link for it at Drs Foster & Smith - http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...9&pcatid=11369 Just my two cents, FWIW