Temp Control 10g upright

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Dustin07

Well-known member
So I think we've decided we are going with a redsea 50 this week. The tank is fairly young, about four months old and mostly just some zoa's, clowns, and clean up right now. The existing lighting is cheap and i think upgrading the lighting is the last part of the equation to moving to some more complicated corals.

(I haven't done corals in many years so I'm relearning from scratch)

Issue: we now live in a very old house that is mostly wood heat and I'm barely keeping temp at 80f. It's holding....but barely and zero risk of getting too hot.

I'm concern d when I remove the cover from the tank and move to better lighting, I'm going to struggle even more on keeping the water warm.


I'm curious if:

A. I'm wrong and removing the cover the tank won't hurt the temp or:

b. If you guys can recommend a solid heater system to keep a nano at ideal temps without risk of it overheating....


thoughts?

its dropped as low as about 78 but since our northwest temps dropped to 35f outdoors I haven't had our tank even at risk of hitting 82f with heater turned all the way up.


Gracias
 
Yes, removing the cover will make the tank cool faster. Your ATO will use more water as well.

Any 50w heater should be able to maintain that tank.

What actual temp are you targeting?
 
I've always kept mine around 78-80 and start to get concerned if it moves below or above that. Although I might be overly concerned.

But it was a consistent 80f until outdoor temps dropped in the last month, and now it hangs out about 77.5 to 78f unless my wife and I have a fire going then the tank rises to 80 and sits there nicely.


But I guess I might be over thinking this if I'm on the warm side already. I just get paranoid about keeping parameters as consistent as possible....


How cool of a temp do you reckon is still safe?
 
75-83 is ok but most people pick 78 as their setpoint. My temp floats between 76-77 for years now. Generally warmer equals faster growth - animals AND algae.
 
This will be a good time for me to experiment see how hard it is for me to maintain that 78 during the cold months. the tank has very little in it still since we're going slow... we'll see how it goes!
 
Temp dropped considerably overnight. it's 33F this morning at home. Temp is still OK but did drop a few degrees so I'll be watching that today and might need to come up with a new solution...
 
So right now my 10g upright with a standard 50w heater likes to hang at 80-82f during summer and fall months (outside ambient temp about 70-80f Pacific Northwest).

But now days our ambient outdoor temperature is about 33F and my house is very cold. I had to remove the lid to the tank to add my RedSea 50w LED lighting and temp has dropped to about 74F.

I'm considering moving up to a 100w heater with external controller. From what I can see, they are CHEAP especially when compared to what I spent on the light.


Any thoughts for or against this move? 100w is a lot for a 10g tank, but in cold weather like we have, taking into consideration the external controller..... this seems wise??


 
Dustin07 said:
So right now my 10g upright with a standard 50w heater likes to hang at 80-82f during summer and fall months (outside ambient temp about 70-80f Pacific Northwest).

But now days our ambient outdoor temperature is about 33F and my house is very cold. I had to remove the lid to the tank to add my RedSea 50w LED lighting and temp has dropped to about 74F.

I'm considering moving up to a 100w heater with external controller. From what I can see, they are CHEAP especially when compared to what I spent on the light.


Any thoughts for or against this move? 100w is a lot for a 10g tank, but in cold weather like we have, taking into consideration the external controller..... this seems wise??


Click to expand...
Off brand heaters are risky and 100w unchecked could nuke your tank. You could add a second 50w for the winter months. I've been using the Aqueon preset heaters in my holding tank because they're cheap and really compact. They're preset to 78 (you can't change it) and I'm surprised how accurate and stable they are so far. Otherwise adding a name brand 50w like Eheim Jager seems safer than a 100w mystery heater.
 
kharmaguru said:
Off brand heaters are risky and 100w unchecked could nuke your tank. You could add a second 50w for the winter months. I've been using the Aqueon preset heaters in my holding tank because they're cheap and really compact. They're preset to 78 (you can't change it) and I'm surprised how accurate and stable they are so far. Otherwise adding a name brand 50w like Eheim Jager seems safer than a 100w mystery heater.
Click to expand...

solid idea. I was concerned that putting a cheapo 50w in with the existing one would nuke the tank to be honest. But perhaps this guy added in tandem with my existing 50w will give me just the tiny judge I need to grab 3-4 more degrees?




I have an adjustable in there now but it's garbage and doesn't have good indicators of temperature. I have it turned all the way up right now, which was a method of experimentation having it turned all the way one direction for a day, then turning it all the way the other direction to find 'hot' and 'cold'.
 
Dustin07 said:
solid idea. I was concerned that putting a cheapo 50w in with the existing one would nuke the tank to be honest. But perhaps this guy added in tandem with my existing 50w will give me just the tiny judge I need to grab 3-4 more degrees?




I have an adjustable in there now but it's garbage and doesn't have good indicators of temperature. I have it turned all the way up right now, which was a method of experimentation having it turned all the way one direction for a day, then turning it all the way the other direction to find 'hot' and 'cold'.
Click to expand...
As I said my experience with those heaters has been positive. You could take the whole thing up a notch and run both heaters on a controller. Set the controller to your max safe value and it would only switch off if your heaters happen to stick on. Lots of people use and like Inkbirds but my experience with them has been poor. I've recently added a IM Helio universal controller (because it was on sale) to a system and it's been solid but it's only been a couple weeks.
 
OK added a 75w adjustable temp heater this week.

night 1: at 74f I removed my original 50w thinking my 75w should be enough to keep temp up. I set my own alarm for 1am so I could check it in the middle of the night in case of a crash. ( I go to bed at 8:30). at 1am temp had dropped to 69f! so I put the original heater back in and went to running both heaters. the adjustable set to 78f and the original 50w just running. Woke up to 73/74f.

night 2: with temps set to 78 degrees my thermometer was showing 74f still. so I turned the adjustable up to 80f since it seemed to need more oomph. I am also using a second thermometer (my BBQ one lol) and it's giving me a reading of 78F now.

next challenge now that I'm maintaining temps better, have great lighting, and have moved to an open top from lidded setup, is planning an ATO lol. Ironically with all these tech upgrades my tank seems to have a lot more gadgets and fine tuning then they did 10+ years ago haha.
 
Out of curiousity what was your original thermometer? If it’s one of those glass stick ons, I’ve found them to be off 2-4 degrees. My theory is it’s mixing outside air temp and glass temp (which should theoretically be water temp) so you get more of an average vs just water temp.
 
Yes I think you are right. I pulled that thermometer out entirely and also removed the 75w that I just bought because I am consistently getting 78-79f (even in my cold house) with just the original 50w when I check with my meat probe whereas my old thermometer still shows about 74f total. Added 4 new frags Saturday, did a partial water change, and all my corals and fish seem very happy. growing, expanding, good parameters, so I think the meat probe is more accurate.... might never have needed to worry about the second heater after all.
 
Sounds like you have a plan in place.

FWIW, I use two of the exact same heaters. One will turn on at 76 and the other at 77 with a 78 degree set point. So, if one fails, the other comes on. Also, there is a controller (Apex in this case) to turn off either if the water is heated too far (80).

When I replace these in the next year, I'm going with the Innovative Marine Helio PTC heater for further safety.
 
mtnbike101 said:
Sounds like you have a plan in place.

FWIW, I use two of the exact same heaters. One will turn on at 76 and the other at 77 with a 78 degree set point. So, if one fails, the other comes on. Also, there is a controller (Apex in this case) to turn off either if the water is heated too far (80).

When I replace these in the next year, I'm going with the Innovative Marine Helio PTC heater for further safety.
Click to expand...

That looks awesome. I may need to look into that. I picked up a new SICCEE heater for a nano I'm now starting at work with what was supposed to be an auto shut off but it went nitro on my tank and heated it to bathwater warm. luckily the tank was empty as I'm just starting to cycle but holy cow.
 
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