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Wife decided to save money by turning off the heat to the house over the weekend.

Because she didn't want to re-program the thermostat OR ask me to do it, she figured it was easiest to just turn off the heat in the house for the three day weekend. The house was at 55 when we got home, and the reef tank was at 70 !! Luckily it didn't seem any livestock suffered, but even with the heaters in the tank, it seems that having the tank in a 55 house was too much for the heaters to keep up with. I wish she had told me she was going to do that so I could .. have her NOT do that.

I never thought about how much the house temp affects the water temp when it's cold (during heatwaves I was very observant, and put RO water in the freezer to help cool the tank, and ran fans).

Just FYI.

V
 
My wife did this last summer but shut the ac off.

Apex sent me a message that the tank hit 82° and since we have a nest thermostat I was able to turn the ac back on.

Money well spent.
 
Yeah...I notice that as well in my house. I have left for a week at a time during the winter. Luckily with Apex, I know what is happening and have been able to call a neighbor to turn on our heat to 60 or so. Still feel a bit guilty heating a portion of the house just for my fish/corals. :(
 
Wow.... Wifebane indeed!

But joke's on her, because your heaters never shut off over that time and with the cost that electricity is probably spent more than you would have if you had the thermostat sent to 68 or whatever
 
Yeah I always feel bad having to heat my whole downstairs just to keep the tank running. I wonder if adding an extra heater when on vacation would help or just add to the potential disaster.
 
An extra heater can be redundancy. It's highly unlikely both heaters would fail at the same time. The only flaw would be if both are controlled by the same temp probe (heater controller) and it gets pulled out of the water somehow.
 
Wow.... Wifebane indeed!

But joke's on her, because your heaters never shut off over that time and with the cost that electricity is probably spent more than you would have if you had the thermostat sent to 68 or whatever
Having my heaters through the new apex is nice. I know that the tank heater are the most expensive power draw in the tank and are about $15/mo in electricity use.
 
Having my heaters through the new apex is nice. I know that the tank heater are the most expensive power draw in the tank and are about $15/mo in electricity use.
Yeah, I remember seeing the hobby go from primarily centrifugal pumps that may have used hundreds of watts to broad flow pumps which were maybe 1/3 to 1/4 the amount of power, lighting went from fluorescent tubes and metal halides to LEDs which may use half the power (although I'd argue against this), and at the end of the day heaters haven't changed because heaters are the most efficient piece of equipment that you have in your tank simply because the "inefficiency" of other equipment is exactly what they do, so it is literally impossible to make an electric heater that uses less power that will do the same job.

Now sure you can do a gas fired water heater conversion, but at the end of the day if you spending a couple hundred on a pressure rated pump, thermostat controllers, the extra cost of gas how long until that $15/month pays itself off? Yeah might as well stick with electricity if that's the case, although YMMV depending upon your system needs.
 
Yeah, I remember seeing the hobby go from primarily centrifugal pumps that may have used hundreds of watts to broad flow pumps which were maybe 1/3 to 1/4 the amount of power, lighting went from fluorescent tubes and metal halides to LEDs which may use half the power (although I'd argue against this), and at the end of the day heaters haven't changed because heaters are the most efficient piece of equipment that you have in your tank simply because the "inefficiency" of other equipment is exactly what they do, so it is literally impossible to make an electric heater that uses less power that will do the same job.

Now sure you can do a gas fired water heater conversion, but at the end of the day if you spending a couple hundred on a pressure rated pump, thermostat controllers, the extra cost of gas how long until that $15/month pays itself off? Yeah might as well stick with electricity if that's the case, although YMMV depending upon your system needs.
You can do hot water heated system. I helped build one when I was doing maintenance and consulting. Pump hot tap water through a hose coiled in the sump. Pump is controlled by the apex just like a heater.

It wasn't really any more efficient than I heater I think but the owner had a heater explode before and crack the sump so he was determined not to have a heater.
 
Also was it connected to the regular potable hot water system. If so that can be dangerous with bacterial growth in the lines. Best to have it separated on its own system.
 
Ok. So, I think your post explains the temp issues I’ve been seeing on my tank. We live in SF. So, it usually doesn’t get too cold. However, I (can’t blame my family members) turned off the heat to the house for while we were away. It looks like my heater had been struggling to keep up.

65d956c1ed954391cca64776496063e8.png
 
Ok. So, I think your post explains the temp issues I’ve been seeing on my tank. We live in SF. So, it usually doesn’t get too cold. However, I (can’t blame my family members) turned off the heat to the house for while we were away. It looks like my heater had been struggling to keep up.

65d956c1ed954391cca64776496063e8.png
Yeah looks like you have maybe a 0.5° hysteresis on your heater, BRS just did a show and they set theirs to 0.1° and man that thing went on/off so much throughout the day it "prematurely" killed the Apex relay. Curious what kind of lights you have over your tank, LEDs? Inside of a hood? Or any sort of direct sunlight? But going to 77 isn't anything to worry about, but if you were away for a week, looks like about 1 degree per day drop in temp, so a week and you're at 71. I assume the power view of this heater turned on somewhere around the 18th and stayed on constantly.
 
I don't know if there is any. I. This case it was an alternative to him having heaters in the tank.

It was about 500g system volumne.
Reminds me of a guy over in the east bay, he had I dunno how many gallons, maybe 1000 total. Plus he had a shed in the backyard with his sump, and when it got cold he paid PG&E through the teeth. He eventually got a tankless gas water heater and did the whole gas water heater bit with it.
 
Yeah looks like you have maybe a 0.5° hysteresis on your heater, BRS just did a show and they set theirs to 0.1° and man that thing went on/off so much throughout the day it "prematurely" killed the Apex relay. Curious what kind of lights you have over your tank, LEDs? Inside of a hood? Or any sort of direct sunlight? But going to 77 isn't anything to worry about, but if you were away for a week, looks like about 1 degree per day drop in temp, so a week and you're at 71. I assume the power view of this heater turned on somewhere around the 18th and stayed on constantly.

At first I thought something was wrong with the heater or the apex programming (even though I haven’t touched the programming in a while), and it had stopped logging, but in reality the heater just hasn’t turned off in couple days.

I think it’ll be ok until we get home.
 
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