I've had this thermometer for about 8 months and just wanted to post a little information about it to prevent someone else from making the same mistake I did...
This thermometer has worked very well in my 54 gallon corner tank. I keep the tank at 76 degrees with a pair of Fluval m200 heaters.
Now the problem... Over the past few weeks I've been having trouble keeping the tank at 76. The tank is in a room that is one of the coolest in the house and the outside/room temp here has been dropping the past few weeks. So, each day that the temp on the thermometer would drop, I'd turn the heaters up a little. I was disappointed with the thermostats in the heaters thinking that they were inaccurate and not able to handle the external temp fluctuation.
Well, earlier this week, the temp readout on the Top Fin digital was about 67. I had the heaters turned up to about 84 and the water didn't feel 67. I ran out and got a glass thermometer, and the water was right at 84.
I think the battery in the Top Fin might be getting low, so the readings are off. The problem is, there's no indication of this anywhere on the thermometer. The display is still dark and crisp (not like a watch with a dying battery) and there's no battery indicator. It just slowly drifted off by almost 20 degrees.
If my heaters had been able to be set much higher and I hadn't gotten another thermometer, I could have easily cooked my fish. This thermometer works great, but I can't see the point to keeping it around anymore if I have to have a backup just to tell when the battery is going.
This thermometer has worked very well in my 54 gallon corner tank. I keep the tank at 76 degrees with a pair of Fluval m200 heaters.
Now the problem... Over the past few weeks I've been having trouble keeping the tank at 76. The tank is in a room that is one of the coolest in the house and the outside/room temp here has been dropping the past few weeks. So, each day that the temp on the thermometer would drop, I'd turn the heaters up a little. I was disappointed with the thermostats in the heaters thinking that they were inaccurate and not able to handle the external temp fluctuation.
Well, earlier this week, the temp readout on the Top Fin digital was about 67. I had the heaters turned up to about 84 and the water didn't feel 67. I ran out and got a glass thermometer, and the water was right at 84.
I think the battery in the Top Fin might be getting low, so the readings are off. The problem is, there's no indication of this anywhere on the thermometer. The display is still dark and crisp (not like a watch with a dying battery) and there's no battery indicator. It just slowly drifted off by almost 20 degrees.
If my heaters had been able to be set much higher and I hadn't gotten another thermometer, I could have easily cooked my fish. This thermometer works great, but I can't see the point to keeping it around anymore if I have to have a backup just to tell when the battery is going.
