heating top off water?
 

For those who have a top off system, dyi,tunze,etc. do you heat the water? or just let it pump the water in cold? I've been heating mine since I started with saltwater but was thinking it's probably not necessary.

so what does eveyone else do? I think i'm going to ditch the heater but i'll wait to see what other people do.

I do not heat mine. Mine tops off severall times a day, and only spits out a little bit at a time. The small amount of water I add doesn't affect the temp at all. And I would assume that if you warm up your water there would be alot more evap, and you would have to fill the ato resevoir up more.

No need to heat top up water.

I have always heated mine too. But know lots of people who do not. So I am not sure why I do...just always done it.

I heat mine as well, just had an extra heater kicking around I guess.

Heating your top off water is a waste of electricity imo.

If you added 1 gallon of ice (-5°C) to 100 gallons of 28°C water
The temperature would only drop the temperature 0.3°C.

Adding room temperature water (21°C) will only drop the temp by 0.069°

I'm pretty sure that a change that small would be perrmissible and that your heater flucuates more than that during its cycling.

Agree that it seems like a waste of electricity. Also, all of the organisms in our tanks will experience occ slight variations in temp in the wild. A temp variation of a few tenths of degree is not going to do anyone any harm.

I just never put any thought into it till today. when I get home i'm ditching the heater.

thanks everyone:biggrin:

:mrgreen:This is a great thread. Energy savings efforts for this week accomplished. I have never heated top off water....and I was not sure why you would. Apparently there are quite a few that do. Hmmm. Interesting.

I hope more people that do heat their water see this thread.



Bump for energy savings!!

I heat mine...If I don't, the goldfish get cold :lol: