Heater Problems

[Chev13696]

Hi everyone,

I have a 125 gal freshwater aquarium with two Marineland Penguin 350 HOB filters (for now). I bought a Marineland Visi-therm 400 watt heater which worked great for 2 months then stopped heating. Woke up one morning and water dropped to 66 degrees.

So now I bought 2 Fluval E 300 watt heaters and I put both in my tank. I followed the instructions and I waited a little over 30 minutes to plug them in so I plugged them in around 5 pm central time and the initial temp reading was 67.5 on both and also was flashing blue because of the low temp and LF for the low flow was cycling on the LCD. Now this morning the LF has stopped but the temp only rose to 75.5 degrees. So for over 14 hours shouldn't they be working better than that. I bought 2 of them because 1 is rated for a 100 gal tank so I figured 2 would be more than adequate.

I do not have a wavemaker or powerhead to increase the flow of my water yet. I have read that they need a lot of flow to work properly. I was going to buy something today but I just dont want to buy something if it still will not help correct this problem.

So any help would be useful.. Thank you for your time.

 

[meegosh]

It could be due to the low flow. You could have hot and cold spots in your tank. Try taking temp readings in different areas of the tank (if possible).

 

[Chev13696]

I have a couple thermometers and they are all with in a degree of each other. 74.5, 74.5, 75 and also one that sticks to the outside of the tank reading 74

 

[meegosh]

What do you have the thermostat on the heaters set to? I had one heater that was off on the thermostat by 2 degrees. It had a knob on the top that went over a gear like part. I removed the knob and put it back on a couple teeth over and it worked as set.

 

[Chev13696]

I had them set to 78.5 didn't move above the 74.5 but I did some more reading and angled them at about 45 degrees and now they are heating up to the set temp. Looking for a circulation pump to help keep water moving through them also. What brand would you suggest to get for a 125 gal.