Heater Recomendation

[Mo1959]

I could never get mine to remind me of birthdays...........must be doing it wrong. lol.

@ Whitey Yes it lights up whilst it is heating then goes off when the correct temperature is reached.

 

[Whitey_144]

I could never get mine to remind me of birthdays...........must be doing it wrong. lol.

@ Whitey Yes it lights up whilst it is heating then goes off when the correct temperature is reached.

lol,

thanks

 

[waterdrop]

The classic thinking is to size the total heater wattage to the tank such that there is enough power to first of all maintain a sufficient tropical temperature within the house environment the tank is in, then to also have enough power to raise the water temp from low conditions to the right range in a reasonable amount of time but finally, to also not have so much wattage/power that the system is able to cook the fish if it malfunctions.

We see less planning of this is recent years because the circuits in heaters do seem to have become generally more reliable, with fewer "stuck in the on position" failures (at least in my totally non-scientific feeling about the forum posts we see.) But if you can make it work, it's still worth trying not to overpower too much. (For example, I run a 200w heater on a tank that probably only needs 140w and a 150w would probably have been a better and safer match, but the type of heater I wanted didn't come in that capacity.)

I tend to generalize 5 watts per US gallon (our forum calculator helps in cross continent conversions) as a rough wattage guideline but there are probably better guidelines.

~~waterdrop~~

according to the calculator, my 130 litres is 34.4 US Gallons, so at 5watt per US gallon i need a 172W. so i think 200W sounds about right, should have enough to raise from low and not over the top to evaporate the fish.. what 28W more than needed not be too much?

thanks!

which heater do you prefer?

Yes, 200w sounds about perfect for your size tank (assuming its in a normal heated house.) I prefer the Hydor inline heaters, for a couple of reasons. First, it gets the entire heater out of the tank so you don't see it at all, and it's a dedicated heater, which is usually better than the filters that try to have a built-in heater function. Second, an inline heater creates much more even temperature throughout the tank because the warmed water is being shot around the tank by the filer pump directly. I trivial side-benefit I like is that I can do my water changes without ever turning off the filter/heater combination because there's no danger that I will uncover the heater, there's always water flowing past it.

The down sides to an external inline heater are that it's bulky behind the tank and you still have to be gentle with the Hydors because they use glass inside. Also, you have to look behind the tank if you want to see if the little on-lamp happens to be glowing.

~~waterdrop~~