Dave Weldon
Avid Member
Howdy,
I'm not totally happy with they way the Hydor inline heater setup works but it is ok.
Notes:
#1. I actually also use a cheap 25W submersible heater in my tank to keep the water around 75F (just as it would be on a nice summer day anyway) on those cool 60F winter nights. Otherwise the temp rise needed from the inline Hydor might be pushing it. (Probably not really needed...)
#2. The 300W Hydor inline heater seems to be able to raise the water temp by around something like 30F-40F at our low flow rates. I let the Hydor run for 5 minutes before any valves open letting any water move.
#3. I have a secondary sprinkler timer that lets the lines flush with warmed water before it closes and the misting pressure builds.
#4. Heat is lost as the water makes its way to the nozzles.
#5. As a leftover from other experiments, I still use homemade inline heaters, one for each nozzle. These would be perfect if they could raise the temp 30-40F on their own. They probably are able to raise the temp around 20F (maybe). They are made of about 3 feet of copper tubing wrapped with insulated nichrome wire powered by old laptop PC power bricks. Those bricks are probably good for ~100W max.
Loooong story short, we chameleon keepers could benefit from a commercially available inline heater that can be easily attached very close to each nozzle to eliminate all of the line flushing and tank heating etc.
