Heater for 150 Gallon Stock Tank

[eddie209]

Hello All,
I am setting up a 150 gallon stock tank. The Rubbermaid one you get at Tractor Supply. I am not going with Goldfish with this one. I am thinking Guppies, Flagfish, mollies, etc.
I live in Northern California, near Sacramento. The top never has frozen on my other ponds.

Any recommendations for a heater?

 

[Mmathis]

Since those fish are better admired being viewed from a tank, why not just get a large aquarium rather than using a stock tank? I would think you might have trouble stabilizing the temp in an outdoor tank — to keep it at specific temperature — in the summer time, you might have trouble with too high temps. I’m sure there are calculators that help you judge heater size with water volume, etc.

 

[Criscar]

I have a 300 gallon stock tank pond, and I live in a warmer more temperate climate than you, and stabilizing temps in the winter has still been a challenge . My pond surprisingly dropped to about 48 degrees in the winter living in mild coastal San Diego (and that was with it being wrapped in insulation and turning off the pump at night) but it still killed the 7-8 guppies that were in there (was not a problem for the White Cloud Mountain minnows or the danios, so you may want to look at those small species rather than guppies or mollies, unless you are willing to let them die in large numbers until they breed themselves into eventual fitness for your pond). I also looked into heating solutions but there aren’t a lot of good ones for outdoor set ups that size. Also worth noting, when my pond was brand new and didn’t haven’t many plants there were also issues with it getting too hot in the summer, so this will also be a problem unless you have a lot of shade and plants.