Heater Recommendations?

[aveldina]

Hey all,
Really glad to mention I successfully moved my 36G aquarium this weekend to my new home in winter while it was -10c outside. =) It can be done with a lot of stress hehe! Went well and the fish are doing great. While I was setting up my current heater (which is NOT full submersible) ended up getting wet at the top yet again. It was not plugged in and to be safe I pulled my backup heater out and threw it into the aquarium. I'd like to finally just get a full submersible heater and be done with constantly moving the heater up and down as we drain and fill while doing water changes.
So I'm curious what everyone else is using for their heater and what you'd recommend? Any heaters to avoid? My back up heater seems to be keeping up well enough I'm thinking of just ordering the new one from bigalsonline.ca. My old heater was an Aquaclear 200W.

Thanks!!

 

[ezy33]

IMO the heaters that have a automatic shut off are what I have switch to. They will automatically shut off when they are out of water. Check on line, they cost a bit more, but are a higher quality and well worth the extra cost. And get yourself a old school mercury thermometer to back up any electronic type.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Why don't you just unplug your heater during PWCs? I use an old Visitherm fully submersible, but the ambient tank temp w/power heads is about 77F so it never even kicks on. My 10g fry tank has a cheapo one that I just unplug during PWCs. I remember blowing many heaters during refills in my younger days though - you always hear the tell-tale sizzle, then it's "oh S#!T", then POP!!!

 

[jsoong]

The fully submersible heaters are generally better quality, and if you want to spend the bucks, a titanium heater would be the way to go (almost no risk of breaking). But if you unplug the heater during pwc (or just keep the heater deep in the tank) you can save yourself quite a few bucks with the glass submersible heaters. In this, the Jager is consider the best by many.

 

[aveldina]

Okay, I saw both the Jager and the Visitherm Stealth online and was wondering if they were alright. I don't often do huge water changes so putting the heater lower in the tank would let me just leave it plugged in all the time.
Edit: The Jager and the Stealth are almost the same price and they both appear to have auto shut off if removed from water. Any reason to pick one over the other? Also what is the guideline for heater wattage per gallon?