heater recommendation
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BeanAnimal
Premium Member
All aquarium heaters suck..
Buy a titanium heater without a temp control on it and hook it to an external unit such as a RANCO controller.
You can search and read horror stories about every single brand on the market. They are made dirt cheap and have a high failure rate. Why spend thousands of dollars on a setup and entrust it to a $11 heater that cost $1.80 to manufacture. It's not a matter of if it will fail, it is just a matter of when. Make no mistake even the $40 "premium" heaters are not much better than the $7.00 special.
Bean
Buy a titanium heater without a temp control on it and hook it to an external unit such as a RANCO controller.
You can search and read horror stories about every single brand on the market. They are made dirt cheap and have a high failure rate. Why spend thousands of dollars on a setup and entrust it to a $11 heater that cost $1.80 to manufacture. It's not a matter of if it will fail, it is just a matter of when. Make no mistake even the $40 "premium" heaters are not much better than the $7.00 special.
Bean
Just had an ugly experience -
Had been trusting the thermometer on my first SW tank for the past 6-8 weeks - seemed warm, but I assumed that was normal.
Had a few fish die unexpectedly, even though the other water parameters seemed correct, I had never checked the temp. Today, the tank felt noticably cooler, and I reset the heater by unplugging it / plugging it in, and it quickly heated up - but, that inspired me to go grab a heater.
Grabbed a glass thermometer first, and it read 88 - way too hot, even though the tank felt colder than usual. Grabbed a quick digital thermometer that read 89.2 - wow. Realized that the heater was still on despite it being set to 79 - clearly the thermostat was stuck.
The tank's been at 89-90 degrees for 6-8 weeks - I'm actually amazed that 'most' everything was alive. The tank's had chromis and crabs since the cycle was established, living near 90 degrees without many problems at all. A sixline wrasse didn't make it, and I lost a few snails, but the chromis and hermits must be amazingly strong.
Taking steps to lower it now - swapped out the header, floating an ice bag in the sump to lower it slowly, have a glass thermometer on the front glass so I can monitor it much more regularly.
Still really depressing that it let it go this long without ever checking with a reliable thermometer.
Had been trusting the thermometer on my first SW tank for the past 6-8 weeks - seemed warm, but I assumed that was normal.
Had a few fish die unexpectedly, even though the other water parameters seemed correct, I had never checked the temp. Today, the tank felt noticably cooler, and I reset the heater by unplugging it / plugging it in, and it quickly heated up - but, that inspired me to go grab a heater.
Grabbed a glass thermometer first, and it read 88 - way too hot, even though the tank felt colder than usual. Grabbed a quick digital thermometer that read 89.2 - wow. Realized that the heater was still on despite it being set to 79 - clearly the thermostat was stuck.
The tank's been at 89-90 degrees for 6-8 weeks - I'm actually amazed that 'most' everything was alive. The tank's had chromis and crabs since the cycle was established, living near 90 degrees without many problems at all. A sixline wrasse didn't make it, and I lost a few snails, but the chromis and hermits must be amazingly strong.
Taking steps to lower it now - swapped out the header, floating an ice bag in the sump to lower it slowly, have a glass thermometer on the front glass so I can monitor it much more regularly.
Still really depressing that it let it go this long without ever checking with a reliable thermometer.
BeanAnimal
Premium Member
Buy a temp controller... It is as (or more) important as your lights. Your tank can live a long time in the dark. However it will not survice 100 degrees very long.
dattack
Active member
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