heater size?

[reefmeiser]

Imo,you are better to use 2 under sized,opposed to 1,because when a heater fails it can stick on and this gives you more time to notice a temp problem in your tank.1 correct sized heater will cause an over heat problem faster than 1 of 2 smaller wattage heaters if 1 should go bad.Recomend 2-150 w instead of 1-300w.

[fawkes]

So many have trouble with heaters that I have grown to worry about my 10G nano in the office. I stop by the office on the weekend if I am in the area, but it could be two days on some occasions before I find a problem. That said i suppose it only takes a couple of hours to kill.

The tank at the house has a Reefkeeper Lite system - so I just set the heater higher than the temperature I want and let the RKL turn it on and off. It does a fine job of managing the temperature. Not to mention that it handles the worry about a heater failing on.

There are some chillers that heat too. Maybe something like that is the better choice in the long run.

[tazzy695]

Untill recently like y months I used a single visatherm stealth 250w heater for my 90g with about 20g in the sump and it worked great but I have found that the tend to get water or salt in them after a while and fail due to stick on

I have switched to a 250w titianium heater with external controler and have had much better results I will post type later when I get home


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[reefmeiser]

nite time temps in my house have been droping to 67 deg,I run 2 150 w visitherm heaters in my 125 gal and they still let my tank temp drop from 78 to 76 deg durring lights out.maybe I should switch t wallmart heater also,cause your 50 w seems to do a much better job than what im running

[tazzy695]

One of the reasons for running more then one heater is incase one fails in the off position it won't let the tank chill and for running 2 smaller heaters is that if one sticks on it won't cook the tank as fast as one large heater

Also one reason for going with a slightly larger heater is it won't run constantly to maintain water temp like a small heater may have to

Heck chris you have been to my house and know I keep it at 65 year round as much as possible my heater runs year round also or my tank would be at about 68 to 70 on average

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[lionhead]

I dont know if this helps but I am running a 300w in my 100gal rubbermade and a 200w in 50gal rubbermaid, and a 200w in my 90gal. 2 are titanium and one is glass.

[rmalone]

Chort55 I HAVE to run 4-250w in my 180g because the ambient temp get down to 45deg in the winter at my greenhouse. I stage them out in .1deg increments with an RKL. And yes, the controllers absolutely make heaters safer, especially on the cooking the tank side of things. Even if the controller screws up and calls for heat the built in thermostat on the heater should shut it down.

[tazzy695]

usually the built in thermostat on the heater is the main one used with the controller being the fail safe

so you are doing it backwards rmalone compared to typical but heck if it works why not use it

[rmalone]

Why? not that you need it but the controller sure gives finer control of temp than the heater.

[CalmSeasQuest]

usually the built in thermostat on the heater is the main one used with the controller being the fail safe...

I was taught the opposite of this...

I set the controller to the desired temp range and set the heater thermostat just slightly higher. This saves cycles on the heater thermostat (the part most likely to fail) and allows the controller (which is generally far more accurate and reliable) managing the temp. I also stagger the the on temps by 0.5 degree so I can easily see the on/off cycles of each heater when viewing a temp chart through the Apex.

I've learned to simply accept the fact that heaters will eventually fail, and almost always in the on position. In order to mitigate the potential damage and inconvenience, I concur with the prior posts about doubling-up Heaters. This is one piece of equipment where bigger is NOT better. Use 2 heaters and under-size them (instead of 1 200W, use 2 100W) This accomplishes a few things. A single failure typically won't raise temperatures to the point of risking your tank's inhabitants, and any changes occur more slowly - increasing your odds of detecting the change prior to loss of life. It also means you have built in redundancy - The odds of both units failing simultaneously is slim and it buys you time to get a replacement.