[Guest]

I have my heaters connected to a heater controller set at 78F. The past few days my temperature has risen to 82F. Any ideas why? Would an addition of a Mag Drive 700gph have done that, or would it be the 25watt UV sterilizer I added recently?

~Ed

 

[jlspitler]

some external pumps will cause an increase in temps. mine has only risen 2 degrees so i offset it by turing down the heater 2 degrees and in your case 4 degrees and you should be fine.

 

[fishyfishyfishy]

How is the UV plumbed?

 

[fishyfishyfishy]

Based on one of your other threads, it looks like you have the pump/UV in your sump.

More than likely this is your problem. You may want to turn off the UV for a few days to verify.

The UV does add a little heat to the water. The problem when it's in the sump is that you're going to pass some of the same water through the UV again and again which continually adds heat to the water.

To give you an idea, on my 450g I had a turbo twist 36 watt plumbed in/out of the sump. I experienced what you did and had about a 4 degree increase in temp. I got rid of that and instead bought 2 Aqua UV 57 Watt Twist sterilizers instead (equivalent to a single 114 watt) that would be effective plumbed in line with my main circulation pump at about 2000gph. Temperature increase doing this was only around a degree.

 

[Guest]

It's vinyl tube plumbed with 3/4" ID tubing. I do have an extra water return jet so I guess I could set it up to return into the main tank.

 

[Aquanist]

i offset it by turing down the heater 2 degrees and in your case 4 degrees and you should be fine.

Hmm. Thermostat heater should not heat beyond the temp it's been set to. Could be faulty heater there? Easy to test just by putting it in a small bucket for 24h and checking if it heats more that it is set to.

 

[fishyfishyfishy]

You'll have to draw the water from the main tank too. Sucking in from the sump and returning to the tank won't work.

 

[fishyfishyfishy]

If it's an actual temp controller then no power is going to the heater so it shouldn't be that.

The only way for a heater/controller reduction to offset the resulting increase in heat would be if it were set to a point higher than the tank is operating without it.

If this tank is indeed running at 82 and the heater is working properly at the 78 degree setting, lowering it will do nothing.

 

[jlspitler]

i offset it by turing down the heater 2 degrees and in your case 4 degrees and you should be fine.

Hmm. Thermostat heater should not heat beyond the temp it's been set to. Could be faulty heater there? Easy to test just by putting it in a small bucket for 24h and checking if it heats more that it is set to.

no my pump heats the water just a little so i turn down the heater as it equals out. my heater is just fine its just that the pump running adds heat.

 

[Guest]

You'll have to draw the water from the main tank too. Sucking in from the sump and returning to the tank won't work.

Why wouldn't it? So far the sterilizer is working great...

 

[fishyfishyfishy]

Basically other than your main single return pump with an overflow sump setup you need to replace the water from where u take it.

What ends up happening is your sump/tank never really finds an operating level with more than 1 pump returning water to the tank.

Levels will drift up/down at various rates....sometimes it takes a while to observe.

It's possible too that the overflow wouldn't even be able to even handle the additional flow to begin with.