Does everyone use heaters during the winter?

TangingOut

TangingOut

New member
Last night and a few weeks ago when our AC unit actually turned on the heater to keep our home at 69 degrees, I noticed in the morning that my tank was at 77. Down from the 79-80 during the day. Although, today it has stayed a constant 77.

I was planning to re-do/upgrade the tank's heating this winter so my heater wasn't installed, but now I'm questioning if there's a need to. Does anyone keep their home around 68-69 find the need for heaters?

I have a 110, so if my AC were to go out I'll have plenty of time to throw my 300 watt heater in the sump.

Also, I understand that my home got down to 69 for maybe only 8 hours these two isolated occurrences, so is it likely my tank will drop further if it stays 69 for days or all winter?
 
I run heaters all year round. Dont really need them in the summer but Definitely do in the winters. Keeps my tank at 78.
 
I don't, but I used to. Please kick my ignorant behind for this, but- what's considered a significant drop or a spike? I keep my sliding doors open, esp during these cool times..oopsay
 
Oh, I'll definitely keep a few heaters around if I end up not having to use them on my system. Mainly to heat water for water changes.

I'm thinking if my system stays above 75 that I'll be bypassing heaters this winter.

defchild, how cool do you keep your home?
 
What is in your tank? It would depend how sensitive it is to temp change. Fish would probably be alright. If your temp only changes 3 degrees overnight I wouldn't worry about it. 110 gal is a pretty good heat sink.
 
I consider more than a 2 degrees swing in a 24 hour period to much for me.
Just that much less stress on the corals and fish the more stable your temp is.
 
Sure. I keep them in the tank and on all year round set to 78. They don't come on all that often, even in the winter but they are there.
 
i have to have them in my prop tank, as I dsicoverd when the little one I had in there stopped working it went from 80 in the day to 70-72 at night for 2 nights, none of the coral seemed too ****ed at this and I dont have any fish in there but for now I moved one of the bigger heaters from the sump(had 2 in there) to the prop tank, at 18g it is small and temps can swing fast.

With one heater in the main system, ~65g total, it seems to stay at 80 pretty consistently.
 
I use heaters year round too. I'm curious how many watts per gallon most people are running here. I'm around 1 and could probably bring that number down safely.
 
This was a short lived experiment, because this morning my tank was at 75. I have my heater back in and raised it to 77. Tomorrow I'll get it to 79 and will keep it around there this winter.
 
Does everyone use heaters during the winter?

Using a controller is an absolute must. All heaters fail eventually. If they fail on you are screwed! Either use an apex, rk or even just a good temp controller like the ranco ones

I have owned pretty much every heater on the market, eheim jägers fail less but they do fail. Cheap heaters often leak voltage. Buy carefully and have a fail safe
 
x2 on controller for heater. If not using a actual reef controller you can get a cheap heater controller like Finnex off ebay. I use one on my frag tank, works like a champ
 
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