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What do you use to heat your tank?

seminolecpa

seminolecpa

Past President
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Most of the general places I look sell max 300W heaters. Right now I have a series of heaters throughout my system and though they seem to be doing the job, was wondering if it is better to find a single high wattage heater to use vs several lower watt heaters. Even moreso concerned when I up my water volume.

Thoughts? Recommended brands? Was thinking of Finnex as that is the only brand i can seem to find.
 
I've been very happy with the ViaAqua 300W heaters. I run two of them in my 200g system. I like the redundancy of running two instead of 1 higher wattage heater. I also like the way the ViaAquas have the seperate external Temperature control with the light that comes on so you can see when it is working. I also added an extra 100w over in my 40g Frag tank. My .02...
 
I use Visiotherm Stealth heaters (I should probably get a contoller, but that is neither here nor there). I've been using them for quite some time now (several years) and haven't had any problems. My other heater is an old glass Ebo Jager which I hear are no longer available.

Use two heaters.
1) If one heater and it fails, your tank has no heating. With two and one failing, your tank will cool much slower and a greater chance to not have a disaster.
2) if one heater and it sticks on, your tank heats up fasterand hotter than two heaters with one sticking on...again, dissaster mitigation.

If your tank needs a 300watt, get two 150's or two 200s.

just my two centavos.
 
Well "better" is relatively to what you want to accomplish.

I use 1 500w titanium finex jobber (impulse buy :D) and a 250w glass (marineland maybe) heater. Both are tied into the controller and the 500watter handles most the heating, however if the temp dips below 76.5 which it can on colder nights, the 250w kicks in for added heating and more than adequate for the job. I also have my controller turn the heaters on and off, and the heaters are set to a tad higher (in case of controller failure).

Now the rule of thumb is you have many smaller heaters instead of one large one, because if a smaller one goes kaput (either stuck on or off) then it won't be as catastrophic as if a single larger one goes kaput. However if you tie them into a controller (Your RKE) plugs are a valuable commodity you might not want to deal with (however you could always hook them all to a power strip and plug that into the controller.
 
See i am using a 300W in my tank, a 250W in my sump and a 300w in my temp tank (all on controllers as i don't trust the internal mechanism on heaters)and they struggle to keep up. My volume is probably about 130ish right now.
 
Not 100% sure of the wattage on all of those but I do know that I have 3 of them running. At least 1 is 300W and the others are at least 200W.
 
Your sump in your garage? How cold does it get there? Also remember that a large volume of water typically cools more slowly than a smaller volume, although 800 watts of heaters should be more than adequate.
 
It probably gets fairly cold down there this time of year. On a normal day the sump runs a couple of degrees colder then the display.

I am sure the problem is amplified by the fact that I have that temp tank running so at this point about 65 or so percent of my water is downstairs at any point in time. in the future it will be more like 20%.
 
[quote author=seminolecpa link=topic=5930.msg74869#msg74869 date=1232064095]
My house is old an very poorly insulated. I am sure that doesn't help.
[/quote]

I can't keep my wife from turning the damn heat on all the time so that lends to my problem... ;)
 
I use a heater to heat my tank. I leave it at about 70, because with 2 aquariums, a window, and a closed door the whole day... The room get VERY HOT and HUMID! It is always about 76-82 in the room... very warm and wet...
 
[quote author=zambavi link=topic=5930.msg74873#msg74873 date=1232064369]
[quote author=seminolecpa link=topic=5930.msg74869#msg74869 date=1232064095]
My house is old an very poorly insulated. I am sure that doesn't help.
[/quote]

I can't keep my wife from turning the damn heat on all the time so that lends to my problem... ;)
[/quote]

LOL my wife is the other way around... She turns on AC when the temp goes up to 70..

Bryan, I have a 300W heater you can have if you need another one. I actually have two but I need one for waterchange bucket.. If you have a smaller one (150W), we can trade....
 
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