Hi guys,
I've seen many great replies and ideas here and I've also done some more research on the subject. The main problem with conventional heaters is the technology that drives them. Resistive heating is extremely inefficient due to the simple fact that you need a lot of wattage to produce heat that is why domestic water heaters are being replaced with heat pumps and propane water heaters.
In our hobby heat pumps and propane water heaters become a lot less efficient as we cannot pass our tank water through them due to copper plumbing therefore we are forced to used some sort of heat exchange device that drastically reduces the efficiency of such technologies.
For this reason I've come up with a concept that is only really applicable to bigger tanks however has the potential to make aquarium heating a lot more efficient and greener. I've attached a diagram below:
The whole idea is based on 'underfloor heating' where we would have a closed loop solution that uses fresh water or maybe even a refrigerant solution if the manufacturer so desires. The main point addressed here is the heat exchanger where we use a titanium plate to transfer the heat from the system to the aquarium this in turn drastically reduces the heat loss. I've also addressed the problem that most heat pumps would make the room a lot colder which makes the whole system inefficient therefore here we can have our heat pump / propane heater in an outdoor unit where all the cold air is exhausted out. Last but not least in my concept design I chose copper piping that is super insulated just like you would have for an AC unit as this material has a very small heat loss between the heat pump and the heat exchanger plate.
This would then be controller by a simple thermostat that shuts off the heat pump when the aquarium water reaches the desired temperature. It should also be noted that the flow rate would play a pretty dramatic role in the system where if water is pumped too fast, the heat exchanger would not be able to keep up and too slow would make the heat pump work harder.
Would love to get everyone's feedback on this and maybe someone can push it to some manufactures for consideration? Personally, I would happily pay up to a $1000 for a system like this since heating my tank already costs upwards of $50 a month.
One final thing I would like to add here is that if a manufacturer simply gives us the titanium heat exchange plate we could already built something like this and connect to our existing under floor heating which make a great DIY project.
