Please do not post this anywhere else without my permission!
Materials:
1. 1- 1½” Elbow
2. 1- 1½” Tee
3. 2- 1½” to ¾” (You can reduce to any size threaded or slip, depending on your application)
4. 1- 1½” to 1” threaded
5. 1- Heyco Product #8437 (Watertight Cordgrip) (Can be order FREE at http://ecommerce.heyco.com/dev/newsamplerequest.nsf/fmNewSample?OpenForm )
6. 1- 7” Long 1½” Pipe (As long as the heater doesn’t sickout of the pipe when you hook up everything but the elbow at the end)
7. Pipe Cleaner/Primer (Not necessary but recommended)
8. Pipe Glue
9. Teflon Tape
10. Eheim Jager 150W Heater
Steps
1. After you obtain the materials and cut the pipe you ready to assemble.
2. Put Pipe Cleaner on all the slip joints, and put Teflon Tape onto all male ended threads.
3. Tighten the threaded joints before you glue, or after the glue is COMPLETELY dried so you don’t weaken joints.
4. After cleaner dries, one joint at a time use the Pipe Glue to attach each fitting.
*Picture not glued, or primed*
5. Attach the heater to the Cordgrip. (Hand tighten ONLY)
Yeah, that's my thread. I did it and it works great. Some disadvantages to what I did versus this. 1) My heater is siliconed in and so cannot be easily replaced or serviced. 2)That's pretty much it. My biggest concern with using the watertight fitting is that I use one to keep my pH probe inline and it has a tendency to not be all that water tight. Especially if it gets bumped at all.
As far as performance goes I think having an inline heater housing is the best. I love not having to see it in the tank.
i forgot to say 1)that if you order the free samples you can order as many as you want...i ordered 10 of them so that if 1 fails i can swap it out 2)im wondering but is silicon greese ok for aquariums? if so you can put it around the little rubber seal inside the cordgrip
I built a heater into my DIY CO2 reactor top. The reactor itself is made from scrap 4" PVC about 18" long I had left over from another job. The large diameter reduces the water flow inside and increases the dwell time at the heater. Plus its what I had
The bottom of the reactor is a 4" PVC cap the top is a 4" PVC cleanout that has a threaded cap for internal access. Everything was glued with PVC solvent cement. All glued joints were cleaned with PVC joint primer.
I drilled a hole in the center of the cleanout cap, threaded it and glued in the rubber compresion fitting that holds the glass heater. I sealed the glass heater into the compresion fitting with some silicone (not grease) sealant as extra insurance, before I carefully tightened it.
The inlet and outlet are electrical PVC 5/8 hose barbs (used for flexable plastic electrical conduit).
The inlet is glued into a drilled and threaded hole in the side of the cleanout fitting where it is thickest. The outlet is in the side of the cap in the bottom.
The CO2 inlet is a small lawn 1/8" sprinkler head and extention siliconed into a smaller rubber compression fitting. The compresion fitting is glued into a drilled and tapped hole in the cleanout 90 degrees from the inlet.
I filled the lower 1/2 of the reactor with 1" sections of 3/4 PVC electrical conduit left over from another job. (I figured the might help mix everything. It was free and cut up easily on my chop saw.) I picked everything I didn't already have on one trip to Home Depot.
I let it all dry for a week outside and flushed it with water with a garden hose for a 1/2 hour before I hooked it up.
It works great, no leaks, the tank stays warm and the plants are pearling. I unfortunatly don't have any pictures since its impossible to photograph under my show tank. I'll will be making another soon and will take some and post some then.
:biggrin: welp still its been a little while like to say no leaks and it still is working great! im thinking about using this tech to make a uv sterilizer? any ideas?
I think he means DIY sterilizer. I am not sure about the effects of UV on certain plastics but I assume it would be fine. I haven't heard of one being created but that doesn't mean it couldn't be done...
Sorry, I didn't realize how long ago that post was.
I would check into this. You do have to use uv approved plastics. Regular plastics will deteriorate. I only know this because I install whole house uv lights lights into duct work (HVAC). But we have to watch where we install them because of this.
I have been to a cusomers home for a complaint of a bad odor only to find that a uv light was installed to close to a piece of plastic that was not uv approved. It causes the plastic to breakdown.
So I made this heater yesterday and when I put my nose up to the pvc I can still smell the glue. Does anybody know what the solubility of the glue is, if any?
Is there any other prep I need to take before I can run it inline with the tank. This is going in my discus tank so I will be very upset if something happens.
So its set up and running as of 1/2 hour ago. I also installed an o2 diffuser because I've had O2 problems because its a 45g tall and I've been trying to pump co2 in at a high rate. The only worry I have is the flow rate is quite high so how well can the heater heat the water if its flowing so fast? I guess I'll find out by tomorrow morning.
I'll post pictures as soon as my camera gets fixed.
i finished mine, and tested, seems I have a small leak, yet those heyco parts work great, heater went right in. Works great, though, I still let it run for an hour or so (its a 1 drip a minute leak) and the tank was already at 82 and holding, just like I wanted, very pleased....aside from the leak that is.
I'm noticing that I'm not getting the heat. I even turned up the heater all the way to see if that would help. I'm going to give it a few days to see if it can keep up with the ac.
Just a thankyou for the idea Snazzy and briandmiles - and my little mod
I added an optical prism to allow the heater light to be visible. By luck, the heater light in the Jager heater lines up exactly with the hexagonal collar of the Heyco fitting. I drilled a 5/32 hole through the hexagonal color and then used a vice to press in a short length of 5mm transparent acrylic rod ($1.30 for 1.8m at a plastics place). Its a VERY tight fit and won't ever move or leak.
I've chosen bigger diameter pipe (50mm) to keep the flow resistance low as I'm using a 1000l/h pump. I couldnt find white PVC bushes to go from the 25mm thread to the 50mm waterpipe so I had to use the black threaded poly "T" and reducing bushes. The bottom end cap is DIY (cut a hole in an end cap and glued in a threaded tap widget).
Very innovative way of dealing with the heater light! Thanks for sharing. It's nice not to have the heater in the tank, and one less cable going up to the rim.
Grubs, Where did you buy your acrylic rod? Im sure I could order it from usplastics. However - Id rather find some local. I was going to use a white 3/5mm led housing to view my heater light.
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