Lady Moogie
New Member
Hi all, and thanks again for all the advice you offered some weeks back 
We are currently getting a little 30l tank ready to move a few guppies out of our main tank (should be alright with 6 or 7 guppies in the 30l, right?) to make room for something else (probably danios of some kind) and were looking for a heater for the tank. I found out a 50watt would be ideal and an uncle of mine had a few spare heaters that he's been rooting through for us. As it turns out, our main tank (120l) has only got a 50watt heater in it! I was pretty shocked to find that. We got the tank 2nd hand and it came with the heater which we never really paid much attention to as the guy said it was fine. Well, it has been keeping temperature but we had wondered why the light was always on! Obviously a more powerful heater would be better for our main tank. So, my uncle has found us a 150watt heater (juwel or fluval, I forget which he said), so we can use that in the big tank and move the 50watt to the small tank.
This is where the question comes in - how are we best to go about changing the heater in our main tank? We don't need to worry about the little tank yet as we've not put any equipment in it yet, let alone water. We'll worry about that one when we've got all the bits together.
Should we add the 150watt to our main tank alongside the 50watt and gradually (over how long?) bring it up to temperature? Presumably when the thermostat clicks off we know it's safe to remove the old heater. Do we need to turn the old heater down first and then remove it from the tank or just unplug it and take it out? I guess it's best to let it cool first.
If anyone here has any experience of this I'd be most grateful for your advice or some form of guide!
My uncle has tested the heater and says it seems to be heating fine, but he's not had time to test the stat on it. Is there any way to test this without putting it in our main tank and risking an overheat, ie fill our little tank with water and run the heater in that to see how it goes, or even just putting it in a bucket of water?
Thanks in advance
We are currently getting a little 30l tank ready to move a few guppies out of our main tank (should be alright with 6 or 7 guppies in the 30l, right?) to make room for something else (probably danios of some kind) and were looking for a heater for the tank. I found out a 50watt would be ideal and an uncle of mine had a few spare heaters that he's been rooting through for us. As it turns out, our main tank (120l) has only got a 50watt heater in it! I was pretty shocked to find that. We got the tank 2nd hand and it came with the heater which we never really paid much attention to as the guy said it was fine. Well, it has been keeping temperature but we had wondered why the light was always on! Obviously a more powerful heater would be better for our main tank. So, my uncle has found us a 150watt heater (juwel or fluval, I forget which he said), so we can use that in the big tank and move the 50watt to the small tank.
This is where the question comes in - how are we best to go about changing the heater in our main tank? We don't need to worry about the little tank yet as we've not put any equipment in it yet, let alone water. We'll worry about that one when we've got all the bits together.
Should we add the 150watt to our main tank alongside the 50watt and gradually (over how long?) bring it up to temperature? Presumably when the thermostat clicks off we know it's safe to remove the old heater. Do we need to turn the old heater down first and then remove it from the tank or just unplug it and take it out? I guess it's best to let it cool first.
If anyone here has any experience of this I'd be most grateful for your advice or some form of guide!
My uncle has tested the heater and says it seems to be heating fine, but he's not had time to test the stat on it. Is there any way to test this without putting it in our main tank and risking an overheat, ie fill our little tank with water and run the heater in that to see how it goes, or even just putting it in a bucket of water?
Thanks in advance
