dragon14
Aquarium Advice Addict
What's a heater controller?
It is a device that has a thermostat that you plug you heater(s) into. It basically gives you an external thermostat in addition to the one inside your heater. They tend to be more reliable than the ones in the heater.What's a heater controller?
It cuts the power to the heater once the temp is reached. You can get them at one of the many online aquarium supply shops and they cast between $25 and $150.Ah. And what does it do should the heater fail and where can one be found? How much are they usually?
You should be fine for the most part. The most common issues with heater is that they stick on.The dial goes to 88 but it only reaches 82.
Yep, so if your heater is capable of heating the tank to 100 degrees it does.Meaning they won't shut off when they come to temperature?
In a 10g tank, a 100w heater should be able to move the temp about 17-18F above the ambient room temperature. So that would mean, in the height of summer it should be able to bring your tank to nearly 100FSummertime 70-82
Wintertime 63-68
Other times of year, in between those of course.
I would buy underpowered heaters before worrying about a controller. By being underpowered they are not capable of overheating, at least not to lethal levels. Better yet is to take that underpowered wattage and cut that in half into two separate heaters. For example, instead of putting 100 watts on a 20 or 29, put 50, and even then split it in to two 25 watt heaters. A 25 watt heater is going to have a very tough time killing anything in a 20 gallon.
FYI to everyone, all heaters work fine. That isn't the issue. The issue is IF they ever fail then you will have a dead tank if you have heaters of the usual power.
What's always concerned me about the underpowered heater theory is the strain of the workload leading to failure.