I was surprised to discover that heating a domestic aquarium can cost as much as $50 a year.
Plasma TVs give off enormous amounts of waste heat. So today’s invention is to create a fishtank with a plasma tv on one side (probably facing outwards, so you don’t have to watch your programmes through waving kelp). Much of he waste heat from the screen’s electronics can be used to heat the tank’s water.
This might be mounted on a vertical-axis turntable, so that one can choose the ‘fish channel’ by rotating the system.
Obviously you’d need remote speakers, so the poor fish weren’t disturbed by the sound.
Fantastic idea, Patrick. We have a DVD of a tropical fish tank (as well as the one of the crackling log fire – we have no chimneys, sadly!) and used to keep the real thing many years ago. This would be welcome in our house. Just a thought, presume, in the interests of course of employing the principles of heat transfer to full effect, you would add a matt black surface to that side of the tank onto which the plasma screen would back?
Cheers, John
Matt black couldn’t hurt, although I reckon that most of the heat transfer would be by conduction -so I’d want to see the hot parts of the screen back bonded tightly to the tank side. Perhaps some egg box-shaped protrusions into the water would help here too, whilst not being too hard to clean.
p