Aquarium Heaters

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Aiken Drum

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Could i get some 2nd opinions on what an aquarium heater should and shouldnt be able to do.

TL,DR should a heater be able to maintain a consistent temperature regardless of room temperature?

About a month ago i bought a new heater. 300 watts for a 200 litre tank, so i will accept its a little overpowered for the tank, but that was the heater recommended by the store for the size of tank.

I set the temperature for 24c, put it in the tank, plugged it in. It wasnt quite bringing the temperature up enough, im not expecting the setting be all that accurate, so i notch it up another 0.5c. It then brings the temperature upto about 27c, so i drop it a tiny bit, no effect, drop it back to the original 24c and the temperature drops to 23c. So that 0.5c increment on the setting covers about 3c in the tank temperature.

Overnight when we dont have heating on, the tank temperature will drop about 3c as well and then gradually comes back up throughout the day as the room warms up again.

It also makes quite a loud knocking noise when the heater is working.

I gave it a months use to make sure i gave it a chance.

For info the room temp during the day is about 19c and overnight drops to maybe 16c.

Im presuming that the thermostat is either faulty or its just a useless product. My opinion is that a heater with a working thermostat should be able to maintain a relatively steady temperature regardless of changing room temperature presuming the heater isn't underpowered. The fish store is adament that seeing tank temperature drop 3 or 4c overnight is normal. Ive never seen this with any other heater ive used, they have always maintained a steady temperature once ive got it adjusted to what i want. The only time ive had an issue is very hot summers where room temperature exceeds the desired tank temperature. Not much a heater can do about that.

They did swap it for another brand, although they were reluctant to do so.

Does anyone else see these temperature swings? Is it actually normal and ive just never experienced it before?
 
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