Victoria Blue World Aquarium WYSIWYG review

[martinmcnally]

Definitely have to say this was the best packed shipment of corals I have ever received. They were bagged 5 times and the carbon pellets were a good touch too to soak up any nasties that accumulate during shipping. All corals doing well!!

However I have noticed this trend lately of taping the heat pack to the lid and I have been wondering why.

Heat rises!

Heat is transferred in one of 4 ways:
Radiation - Needs to be infra red heat (which a heat pack is not)
Conduction - Air (and packing peanuts) are very poor conductors of heat.
Convection - A convection current cannot start inside the box because heat rises and the heat source is at the top.
Advection - Doesn't happen because nothing inside the box is moving.

If you want the best use of a heat pack with also protecting the corals place the heat packs in the center of the bottom of the box, put some packing peanuts on top of them or some Styrofoam less than size of the footprint of the box. The corals can then go on top of that. That way they are not touching the heat pack and the heat back is free to create a convection current inside the box. The warm air will rise up over the corals and cool air sink to the heat packs. Thus the corals stay warmer. If the heat pack never gets hotter than the water temperature then the corals can go right on top of them. Then you get convection and conduction!

That thermal conductivity class did come in handy after all haha. Lord Kelvin would be proud haha we went to the same university although he died 92 years before I got there.