Hello, I am new to the site and have a question about aquarium heaters.
I am a PhD student at the University of Connecticut studying Ranavirus in wood frogs. I will have outdoor mesocosms made from 50G stock tanks. One of my treatments is temperature and I will have heated tanks paired with ambient temperature tanks. I will have Arduino chips that monitor temperatures and turn on tank heaters with the idea of keeping the heated tanks 3*C higher than the paired ambient tanks. My problem is that we expect the temperatures to get fairly high in the non-heated tanks, as they are small and will only have 50% shade from the lids. If the ambient tanks get over 90*F then the heaters with thermostats might not be able to heat the ambient tanks to 95* (a 3*C difference). Does anyone know of a 300W tank heater without a thermostat or one in which the thermostat could easily be disabled? I will have the Arduinos monitoring the temperature and cutting power to the heaters once the temperature is right, so I don't think I have to worry about a heater going out of control. But I also have no idea about this because I am a total noob when it comes to fish tanks. Anyway, thanks in advance for any and all help!
I am a PhD student at the University of Connecticut studying Ranavirus in wood frogs. I will have outdoor mesocosms made from 50G stock tanks. One of my treatments is temperature and I will have heated tanks paired with ambient temperature tanks. I will have Arduino chips that monitor temperatures and turn on tank heaters with the idea of keeping the heated tanks 3*C higher than the paired ambient tanks. My problem is that we expect the temperatures to get fairly high in the non-heated tanks, as they are small and will only have 50% shade from the lids. If the ambient tanks get over 90*F then the heaters with thermostats might not be able to heat the ambient tanks to 95* (a 3*C difference). Does anyone know of a 300W tank heater without a thermostat or one in which the thermostat could easily be disabled? I will have the Arduinos monitoring the temperature and cutting power to the heaters once the temperature is right, so I don't think I have to worry about a heater going out of control. But I also have no idea about this because I am a total noob when it comes to fish tanks. Anyway, thanks in advance for any and all help!