Heaters
- Thread starter Mitchl17
- Start date
I would do it. I like 5 watts per gallon. It makes sure that the heater isn't working that hard to heat the tank.
It will do. If you had enough space, 2 smaller heaters might be better. That spreads out the work and allows for a redundancy if one heater fails. Makes the water temp more even as well. Of course it does take 2 plugs.
Well, a 200 watt visi-therm stealth heater is rated as being able to hold a temperature of 18f above ambient room temperature in a 55g aquarium. A stealth 150 watt is rated as 18f above room temperature in a 45g aquarium. I'd probably go with the 200 watt myself, but brands and user experience can vary greatly.
I have a brand new All Glass one that does that. Very annoying because I spent $35 on it at PetCo, needing it in a hurry. Luckily, I had also bought a second one, same brand, that day so I had dual heaters in my 55 gallon. Now I'm only using the one due to the one overheating.
I have heard of heaters getting stuck in the on position and cooking fish. probalby unlikely but that is another positive of having two smaller heaters. one fails the other keeps the temperature from dropping too much.
One goes into a stuck on condition and it has less power thus giving you more time to find and correct the problem.
the size of the heater is also highly dependent on not only the size of the tank but the temperature differencial between the room air temperature and the desired tank temperature. Especially true in cold climates where room temperature might be in the low 60s at night.
One goes into a stuck on condition and it has less power thus giving you more time to find and correct the problem.
the size of the heater is also highly dependent on not only the size of the tank but the temperature differencial between the room air temperature and the desired tank temperature. Especially true in cold climates where room temperature might be in the low 60s at night.
That is probably the more common way they fail. The contacts inside the unit are really cheap and weld together. I havent looked into them yet but I hear there are heater controllers out there that are used in synchronizing multiple heaters (so they dont fight against each other) and less likely to fail that way. When using the sperate controller, even if the heater failed on, the controller would still shut it off as needed.