smidey Posted August 10, 2006 Report Share Posted August 10, 2006 Hi LJTAN, i'm just curious if you have a thermometer in the corners of your tank & if the temp stays even throughout the tank. I was advised to put two smaller wattage heaters in my 200L tank (1 at each end) so they heated that larger amount of water more evenly. Are you aware if you get cold spots or was that just a sales ploy to get me to buy two heaters rather than one. My tank does heat evenly just wondering if yours does to with one heater. Smidey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharn Posted August 10, 2006 Report Share Posted August 10, 2006 its not a sales ploy (would that be a first? :lol: ) if you dont have very good circulation near your heater and around your tank you can get 'dead spots' which do feel alot colder and that cant be good for the fish. i like to have two heaters in each tank if i can (im slowly replacing the singles with new doubles), not only does it heat more effectively you also have less chance of the heater sticking on and cooking your tank, with two lower wattage heaters its going to give you alot more time to realise whats happened and vice versa with it sticking off. in saying that though in my oscar tank i have one heater, but i have two internals at each end, heater in the middle. this heats the tank evenly as it has 3000lph flowing past it. if you have your outlets set up properly youll be totally fine with one heater, but you have more risk of cooking the tank Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ljtan55 Posted August 10, 2006 Report Share Posted August 10, 2006 Yeah, its definately better if you have 2 heaters in a big tank. I actually wanted to put 2 heaters but I have a 300 watt and 150 heater, and was advised that was overkill so I just stuck to the one heater. I've got 2 digital thermometers reading opposite sides of the tank, and the heater is directly in front of the water outlet in the middle of the tank so i do get even dispersion of the heat. Having said that, it is a 3 foot tank, so maybe thats one of the reasons the heat is pretty even. Not claiming I dont have cold spots though. I'm hoping my fish are smart enough to swim towards the heated part of the tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpidersWeb Posted August 11, 2006 Report Share Posted August 11, 2006 Speaking of 300W heaters. The Masterpet 300W heaters glow red, which is kind of creepy, but mine are working perfectly so far, no moisutre build up, and even the temp adjustment was accurate, I set it to 27C and the tank went to 27C!! Whereas my Jebo's appear to have been calibrated by a blind man. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PETEYPLECO Posted August 11, 2006 Author Report Share Posted August 11, 2006 Well what do you now, I got up this morning and checked my tank and the temp was at a chilly 20.5 degrees as my normal heater seemed to have failed over night ! Lucky I had just bought a backup after all , or was it bad vibes or jelousy from the old heater? Had to do a quick swap and run off to work so I hope the settings on the new Jebo work properly otherwise I may go home to cooked fish? Will my fish get sick now after the temp got so cold overnight? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kim&Dan Posted August 11, 2006 Report Share Posted August 11, 2006 Well what do you now, I got up this morning and checked my tank and the temp was at a chilly 20.5 degrees as my normal heater seemed to have failed over night ! Lucky I had just bought a backup after all , or was it bad vibes or jelousy from the old heater? Had to do a quick swap and run off to work so I hope the settings on the new Jebo work properly otherwise I may go home to cooked fish? Will my fish get sick now after the temp got so cold overnight? It depends on the fish but 20.5 is not too bad and I reckon they should be ok. Watch out for Ich or White Spot though - in the past when that sort of thing happened to us the worst consequence was Ich and/or White Spot... Good luck! HTH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suphew Posted August 11, 2006 Report Share Posted August 11, 2006 They wont get sick from the temp dropping over night but just let the water heat up slowly, it is the fast changes that cause problems. However in saying that I used to ad 30-40% cold water to my discus tank and never had any problems. As far as heaters go, check out the temp controllers that Jetskisteve is selling in the commercial section, it's a big outlay to start with ($89) but will soon pay for itself in saved fish and heaters. I replace countlesss heaters because of the thermostat failure. I used to use fluval tronic heaters because they were the cheapest most reliable ones I found, but the problem I had with them in the end was that once the temp had been set for a while if you tried to adjust it the unit would stop working. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PETEYPLECO Posted August 14, 2006 Author Report Share Posted August 14, 2006 So far so good, all fish seem okay and the $20.00 300W jebo is fine too. Will end up getting a decent heater again soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AMAZONIAN Posted August 18, 2006 Report Share Posted August 18, 2006 Materpet Heaters are " NOT SUBMERSIBLE" and have to be vertical in the tank and they are extremely long for the wattage. I've got a couple of 150 Watt'ers you can have for $20.00 each plus post. Brand new never used and wont be by me. I'll stick with AQUA ONE Heaters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishboi Posted August 22, 2006 Report Share Posted August 22, 2006 got myself a 300watt Weipro off trademe awhile ago but only actually using it these couple of weeks as just want to say its the best one yet. it has perfect accuracy [better than the stainless steal aquaone i have]and its compact in size [smallest one out of aquaone normal and stainless, jebo and masterpet] but have not seen any for sale these days :-? no one has said anything about the Jager, never owned one myself because of the price. is it worth the price? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadowfax Posted September 21, 2006 Report Share Posted September 21, 2006 adding weight to the jebo heaters being crap, i have 2 300w in my 300l tank & only 1 seems to go & they are both set on 20 to maintain 26 degrees, setting them high causes the water to skyrocket to 30. one completely failed & got up to find my tank on 19 & some sad fish, got it replaced but they seem to be rubbish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
me love fishy Posted September 21, 2006 Report Share Posted September 21, 2006 After having heater thermostat troubles and cooking my fish with cheap heaters, unsure of brands but they were cheapies, I only have Jager heaters in my tanks. I have two in my 4 ft tank and one in my 60L, can't remember the wattage offhand I think maybe two 300w in the 4 ft tank and one 150w in the other, maybe a bit OTT but figured it can't hurt to have extra wattage. I had probs in the winter down here with the tanks not holding the temperature they were supposed to at night and lost quite a few fish to fin rot etc from the stress it caused them , well not 100% sure it was that but it was the only thing I could pin it down two and it happened over two winters, so I installed the Jager heater in the little tank and an extra heater in the 4ft tank, (was advised on this forum that two heaters at each end in a large tank are better than one thanks for that advice), so I got another the same wattage. I think they are pretty good, never had any temperature issues since I have had these heaters. they do get condensation buildup, but it doesn't seem to affect the way they work and I am clumsy sometimes when I am cleaning the tank and bump them and have not managed to crack one yet. I have had the one in the little tank for a couple of years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpidersWeb Posted September 21, 2006 Report Share Posted September 21, 2006 Jager is the best for glass bi-metal heaters... but since we're on the heater topic again.... Switched on Gardner sells AquaOne stainless steel heaters (150,200,300W @ $45, $50, $55). The thermostat is digital, so you dont have to worry about the bimetal strip sticking on, or rust, and the heater itself is stainless steel so you can't break it, and for larger fish you dont need heater-protectors. They're also more accurate. They're around $80 in pet stores. As for cheapo glass don't be tempted by buying Masterpet heaters because of their $19 price tag, mine already have huge amounts of water in them. Jebo heaters going fine, and AquaClears working fine but there is a little condenstation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharn Posted September 21, 2006 Report Share Posted September 21, 2006 so SW, does that mean the stainless ones have less chance of failing? if they were to fail how would they do so? i have 3 aqua one SS heaters (two in oscar tank and one in discus tank) and i cant say enough about them. calibrating two heaters to work together (i use two heaters in each tank where possible) can be hard cause you have to fiddle with them quite a bit and because the controller is external it makes it SO much easier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharn Posted September 28, 2006 Report Share Posted September 28, 2006 one SS heater failed in my O tank last night, the other was struggling to keep temp up but it was only at 25 when i found it so i just put the old heater in until i can get another SS heater. no idea as to why it failed but it just wouldnt turn on, i turned the dial up to 34C and it wouldnt flick on, put the probe in cooler water and it still wouldnt go on so i gave up (this is at 2am). this is one of those times im thankful to be running two heaters in one tank Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpidersWeb Posted September 28, 2006 Report Share Posted September 28, 2006 eck thats not good Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
heather Posted October 3, 2006 Report Share Posted October 3, 2006 Nobody's mentioned the Rena heaters? I've had a 300w on my 250L tank for over a year and its been perfect. However, I am going to change it to two heaters of smaller wattage just to cover my backside. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharronpaul Posted October 6, 2006 Report Share Posted October 6, 2006 In our larger fishroom, we used 20 x rena 300w heaters and never had any problems. I would reccomend them wholeheartedly. The price is right too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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