250 watt heater enough for 110 gallon?

[Northern]

I've been to a friend's house recently and he has a freshwater 110 gallon tank. He says he's only got one 250watt heater and it works perfectly heating his tank to 30c (86f).
Is this right? Or could it be that freshwater tanks easier maintain temperature?
Sorry for the amateur question but I'm really new to this.

 

[SaltyDr]

If it works for him fine, but I would probably go with 2 heaters, just in case. Some might depend on the ambient temperature of the house, the number of powerheads, your lighting, etc. I live in Florida and my heater rarely goes on, except for a few days when it gets down into the 30s at night and our house gets into the mid to upper 60's. Otherwise it stays 80-84.

 

[Northern]

you'd go with two smaller ones right?

 

[fireman676]

Multible smaller heaters are better for a number of reasons:
- each heater has to work less to heat the water
- if one fails off you have back up to maintain temp
- if one fails on it is small so it will have less of an impact on your water
I would also invest in some sort of controller like a ranco. That way you are not depending on the heaters themselves to control the temp.

 

[Henry Bowman]

^^^ Yup. Dont get them too small. If one goes out, the other one wont be able to keep up and YES it will happen when it is cold outside...

I have 2ea 200's in a 90. My thinking is this. Two heaters work less to keep the tank at temp. I use titamium heaters plugged into a thermo controller. They are 2 Finnex on one controling device. The controling device is set to 79 deg. Then the Finnex controler is pluged into an aquairum monitoring and controling system. The system applies power to keep the temp at 78 degrees. IF the finnex controler goes out. well I can plug the heaters directly into the aquarium controler. IF the aquarium controler goes out, I still have the finnex controler.


It would be nearly impossible for the heaters to cook the tank. If one of the electronic controls go out, I can plug the heaters in direct. If one of the heaters go out I have another to keep the tank temp where it's supposed to be.

 

[tspors]

I live in Wisconsin (cold) I have a 150g, w/1 500w heater in the sump. The heater rarely goes on, I even have a fan pointed into my sump to keep it cooled. The sump is in the basement and water is pushed back up stairs. My lights keep my system warm. When I wake my temp is 78.5 +/- and it tops out near 81.5 before the lights go out. You will have to test your system and watch it. No magic answer here just keep an eye out.

 

[Chibils]

I have a 90G with two 175w halides and three 150w heaters. They never go on, because without fans my tank runs at 82-86 (@lights on-@lights off). We keep the house between 65 and 70.

 

[Daka]

When using more than one heater, is it better to have one in the sump and the other in the DT? Or both together?