It's my heater isn't it?

E

euglossa

AC Members
Nov 9, 2006
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The water temp in my 75 gal got up to 85 on monday evening. I turned down the thermostat and opened up the canopy for several hours and it gradually dropped to 81. I closed the canopy and went to bed and by morning the temp was at about 78.

It was 76 when I got home yesterday, but had climbed again to 78 by 11. I turned the heat down a notch again and I dipped a finger in it during the night and it didn't feel too hot. But this morning at 7 it was back up to 85. I tried turning the thermostat all the way down and waited a half hour, but the light did not go out, so I unplugged it and will buy a new heater as soon as the store opens.

The heater has been in use only three months, a nice expensive all glass submersible, still under warranty, thank goodness. Until this week it has maintained the tank at 76.

The tank heating up in the evening does mirror the house being more warm when I am home, but even when it is coldest I never set the thermostat above 70, and usually it is between 63 and 65, so I don't think that is a contributing factor?

Ellen
 
This might be a bit of a streatch, but what side of the tank is your heat on. Do you have a christmas tree redirecting a draft or heat current that you put up three months ago. If you end up getting a new heater, with a tank that big, i would get two heaters on either end of the aquarium. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. One end of the aquarium could be behaving difrent, temperature wise, than the other end of the aquarium.
 
i would get two heaters on either end of the aquarium
Click to expand...
you probably mean one on each side of the tank ;) i use a heater on each side of all my tanks over 75 gallons, but not on the 75's themselves. get a quality heater to begin with ... simply being submersible isn't necessarily a quality factor. i use Ebo Jaeger and Visi-Therm
 
No changes near the tank, no christmas lights, no heat vent nearby. It gets some sunlight now the sun is so far down in the sky, but the window the light is coming from is about 15 feet away from the tank and the exposure is brief, not enough to add heat I should think.

I bought another 300 watt heater-the best I could get at Petsmart, which is the only option here. When I send the first one back for replacement can I put both 300 watt heaters in the tank-one at each end and they can back each other up? Or would that be too much heat? Usually I've seen people saying they use lower wattage/heater on a double heated tank.

Perhaps later I can get two 250? 200? watt heaters and find someone with a bigger tank to take the 300s. (and no, that won't be me, grin, my little house is maxed out with the 75.... unless I ever build an addition...) I wasn't thinking clearly enough this morning to buy two lower watt heaters.

Ellen
 
In your case I believe two 300 watt heaters may be a bit of overkill and if they go haywire you could end up well over 85f. I think it varies a bit by brand, but the visi-therm stealth packaging I have indicates that their 250 watt heater is capable of maintaining a 18f increase over ambient air temperture in a 75g aquarium. I would probably go with either a pair of visi-therm stealth 150 or maybe 200 watt heaters for a 75. This assumes decent water movement.

Just to mention it, most of the time my heaters have gone nuts is after water changes. In general I try to unplug my heaters about 15 minutes before a water change and don't plug them back in until 2 hours afterwards. Aquarium heaters tend to use cheap thermastats and giving them time to acclimate to temperature changes seems to help keep them reasonably accurate.
 
>Just to mention it, most of the time my heaters have gone nuts is after water changes. In general I try to unplug my heaters about 15 minutes before a water change and don't plug them back in until 2 hours afterwards.

There's a thought. I do a weekly water change, but that was a couple days before the glitch. I have been careful to keep the water temp the same and I plug the heater in at the same time I put the filter back on, when the refill is completed.

For now I'll stick with the new 300, but will put a couple 150 or 200 watt heaters on my shopping list.

Ellen
 
I'm guessing you checked, but did you check to make sure that the glass is not cracked? I had a heater for 3 weeks and the same symptoms happened. Turned out the bottom was cracked and the heater filled with water, so it stayed on constantly. Unfortunately for me, the warranty did not include glass breakage. That's when I went out and got a Visi-Therm Stealth (i.e. no glass).
 
I live in Wisconsin and our house heat goes from 64 to 69 depending on our schedule. The tanks have been fine with this. I had one Visitherm overheat and one Marineland do it. The new Visitherm has been great.

Print the online price and take it with your to Petsmart, they should match it.
 
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