Heater malfunction

[jrp1588]

Well, we had the first cold night of the year last night, and what do you know, my heater "forgets" to turn on. This resulted in a 10 degree temperature change overnight to 70 degrees. Needless to say, one of my brand new angelfish died. May he rest in peace. The heater seems to be working now. I think I may want to get a reliable heater today, can anyone recommend a few good ones that will more than likely be at petsmart?

 

[RoK]

Visi-therm heaters are great and should be there.

 

[Tiffi]

I like the Hagen tronic, very reliable with some nice features.

 

[jrp1588]

they have visi-therm on their website. It actually has a real thermostat on it! Unlike my piece of poo heater where you just kinda guess at it!

 

[greenmaji]

hmm.. how many watts does the heater have? It might not have had enough power for the temperature change. And the fanciest heater in the world cant make up for not enough power.. so.. is it 150watts? 5wpg is the rule I use.. HTH

 

[jrp1588]

Heh, just look at it, the thing was 50watt. And it was malfunctioning, it always has a light when it's on..and the light wasn't on.

 

[greenmaji]

it gives up when it cant keep up jrp..
in other words.. it didnt malfunction.. it functioned untill it couldnt keep the temperatue you set it at when going full blast..

 

[Guest]

i agree with greenmaji, try getting a more powerful heater WITH a thermostat.

 

[gheitman]

I would recommend getting one 150W or two 100W heaters for that 30 gallon tank. A 50W heater is definitely too small. While 100W heaters are supposed to heat up to 30 gallon tanks, a good rule of thumb (as mentioned above) is to get enough heating so that you have 5 watts per gallon.

I suggest going with two 100W heaters instead of one 150W heater because it will provide more even distribution of heat throughout the tank (I put one on each end of my 29 gallon) and, heaven forbid, if one heater fails you have a backup.

I prefer the Hagen Tronic heaters myself (I use nine 50W and 100W heaters among my various tanks) because they are fully submersible, digital, have built in overheat cutoff and there are optional heater guards available. I have the heater guards on all of my heaters because they keep fish from burning themselves (very possible with catfish) and they protect the heater from damage caused by rocks, etc.

The only negative in this case is that they don't appear to be carried by Petsmart. At least they aren't listed on the Petsmart web site.

 

[malkore]

I think the general rule is 3wpg minimum, but as long as you get a good brand (Visitherm, Titanium, Ebo Jager), then 5wpg is better because it'll heat quickly and thus run less often.

You don't want a cheap 5wpg heater though, because it could get stuck 'on' and cook your fish.

 

[jrp1588]

Well last night I got a 100watt visitherm heater at petsmart. It seems to be working great. I would have bought a higher wattage, but this was all I could afford at the time.