Heater for a small tank, is anything too big?

[aprilp]

April, look into marineland or another brand like it. They sell nice heaters for fairly cheap. Best thing about Marineland heaters (at least mine) is it has a lifetime warranty and it was 35 bucks for a 200 watt heater. THAT WORKS!

amesdrew: thanks! $35 is definitely worth it for it to work properly!

Tim W: thanks for the info.... I will absolutely get a new heater since like you said before, its better for the fish if the temp does not fluctuate so much. I guess I was being stubborn trying to use all my old equipment when the last time I used it was about nine years ago!

 

[Tim Wheatley]

Best of luck!

 

[jsoong]

This is incorrect.

The larger heater simply has more power, what this power does is alters speed, not the actual temperature. A small heater can go to just as high a temperature as a large one, it would just take longer to do it.

Well, a tank loses heat to its environment, the heat loss increases as the temp goes up (higher gradient). So when heater's output is less than the heat loss, the temp rise stops. A smaller heater will have a lower final equilibrium temp compared with a big one.

 

[Tim Wheatley]

Both well above the death of everything in the tank.

If it's failure you're worried about, surely a larger heater would be better, it has to be on for far less time to reach temp. If the active time is a concern, smaller isn't smarter.