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Re: BIG tank heating cables



S. Hieber" <shieber at yahoo_com> wrote
<snip>
> [[[[The laws of physic remain immutable.  That's why why substrate
> heaters can be more efficient application of the heat generated.  With
> substrate cables, the heat must rise through the entire water column to
> escape from the water surface.  With tube heaters, a lot more heat can
> rise to the surface before passing through much of the tank water
> (relatively speaking).  I can maintain temp in my substrate cabled 150
> gallon tank with roughly the same amount of electricity as my
> tube-heated 30 gallon requires.]]]]]
<snip>

There might be another factor that compounds with the one you described: 
contact area. A tube heater has a few square inches of very hot glass in 
contact with water. A cable heater provides a large mass of mildly 
warm gravel in simultanous contact with a large mass of water. The water in
contact with the tube heater may get very warm, but as you said, a good
part of this heat is going to escape at the surface. Setting a powerhead 
or filter output jet to blow right over a tube heater should increase 
its effectiveness by a lot, I think.

- Ivo Busko
  Baltimore, MD

  "Buy a fish, Save a tree !"
  Project Piaba: http://www.angelfire.com/pq/piaba/