A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners
aquaponics safe water heater element???
does anyone know of a 120v stainless steel water heater element? It seems most all you can find online are 240v or if they are 120v they are copper, nickel or zinc. Also, when talking stainless steel, what is the difference between resistored stainless steel and non-resistored stainless steel? Would they both be considered safe for aquaponics?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Chris Carr on
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From what I understand most are using the 240v one. As for your question about resistored or not, I dont see how i would matter. What does matter is what metal is exposed to the water. stainless is stainless in this case.
This subject has been discussed at length in the comments here. http://community.theaquaponicsource.com/forum/topics/diy-heater-bui...
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Permalink Reply by Vlad Jovanovic on
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Well, the way it was 'resitored' may matter to some. Usually some sort of low Watt alloy is used. Like Chromium mixed with and some type of austenitic Nickel. Folks generally try to avoid Nickel in a recirculating system with fish.
Usually the heating element is sheathed in such a chromium-iron-nickel alloy, so it exactly that alloy which is exposed to the water.
Now, I'm not saying that a resistored SS heating element WILL 100% kill your fish over time, but why risk it if you have a choice?
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Permalink Reply by Rob Nash on
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you can get stainless at some of the Lowe's stores. if you go with a 240 at 5500 watt, and run it on 120v, you will get 1/4th the wattage.... so it will be 120v at 1375 watts. get a Ranco temp controller and enjoy the piece of mind of heating your tank for around $100... cheers
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Permalink Reply by Benjamin Udy - Super Genius on
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@ Vlad - Thanks and I'll keep that in mind and make sure I go with the non-resistored heating element. Do any companies make a titanium heater element? Would that be superior to ss or just more expensive and unnecessary?
@Rob - At what point do you think engineering your own water heater, like the ones you have done, becomes more cost effective than just going out and buying a submersible aquarium heater; in terms of size? The heaters that you have designed and implemented in your systems are great and an extremely cost effective way of heating your system but you had said somewhere that it's for a 300 gallon stock tank. If you were just needing to raise the temp in let say, a 75 gallon tank, do you think it would be more cost effective to just go out and buy a submersible titanium heating element? I found this 300 watt unit on Amazon for $45. I love tinkering and fabricating my own workarounds for things but for a smaller system it seems the ViaAqua unit might be a more cost effective choice. Also, running the 300 watt heater should cost less than one running at 1375 watts. I know you would have to account for the amount of time each was running, so the 300 would be actively heating the water more often whereas the 1375 you could probably set it to come on for 15 min every 90 min or so. So yeah, not quite sure which avenue to take with this one. Hopefully I can get some good opinions to help me decide.
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