sdrone
Aquarium Advice Regular
I inherited a 20 gallon tank from my neighbors; I've had an issue or 2 but so far things have been pretty smooth over the last 4 months thanks to advice on this forum.
The heater that came with the tank didn't have any kind of markings you could use for setting temperature - you had to kind of experiment. The aquarium is in a corner of my family room, and the temp in that half of the room is about 68 degrees.
I got a Fluval 100w heater for Christmas. It has a dial with easy to use temp settings. I set it to about 78 degrees.
It keeps the aquarium at about 76.2 or 76.4 degrees. I can turn it all the way up and the water temp doesn't fluctuate. The water temp will actually fluctuate DOWN occasionally, which is odd. The room is probably a degree warmer the last couple of days, but the water temp has gone as low as 74.5.
I'd think the heater would be on all the time since the water temp isn't up to what I've set, but it cycles on and off like nothing is wrong. I have not gotten a different thermometer to double check things; I supposed I should do that.
Is this common? I know some people recommend 2 heaters in an aquarium for redundancy, but this heater is slightly oversized, and I thought it would do the job .
The heater that came with the tank didn't have any kind of markings you could use for setting temperature - you had to kind of experiment. The aquarium is in a corner of my family room, and the temp in that half of the room is about 68 degrees.
I got a Fluval 100w heater for Christmas. It has a dial with easy to use temp settings. I set it to about 78 degrees.
It keeps the aquarium at about 76.2 or 76.4 degrees. I can turn it all the way up and the water temp doesn't fluctuate. The water temp will actually fluctuate DOWN occasionally, which is odd. The room is probably a degree warmer the last couple of days, but the water temp has gone as low as 74.5.
I'd think the heater would be on all the time since the water temp isn't up to what I've set, but it cycles on and off like nothing is wrong. I have not gotten a different thermometer to double check things; I supposed I should do that.
Is this common? I know some people recommend 2 heaters in an aquarium for redundancy, but this heater is slightly oversized, and I thought it would do the job .