Not Trusting Heater... Me Thinks It Could Be On The Way Out

[sven_sol]

Hi all,

Doing a big water change/vac before we go away this week to see the folks and noticed something odd about our smaller tank, a Jewel Rekord 100.

I put my hand in the water and it was freezing!! Looked at the temerature on the side and it said it was 18 degrees (I'm not trusting the thermometer either - felt colder than that!!).

I checked the heating element and it was cold and the light on it was off. ARG! Heater packed in!! touched the heat setting on the top and the light came on!

I don't know how old the heater is (second hand) and it seems that the heat setting on that particular point doesnt seem to work correctly - a bit higher/lower and it does.

I don't know how long this has been happening, could be first time, could have been happening for a while.

So, I just need to know:

1. Would you trust the heater on different settings?
2. Would you trust the termometer? Should I get on with an alarm?!
3. Are there any ill effects I need to look out for on the fist from cold water, or would they have just died?

Need to know soon, as I'm headding off on Boxing day and tomorrow is the only time I'll be able to get down to the LFS.

Thanks in advance!!


Sven

(Merry Christmas everyone!!)

 

[KimA]

Hi,

What temperature do you normally have the heater set for? Would of thought that it'd take some time for it to get down to 18 degrees.

Personally I'd go and buy a new heater tomorrow, and a second thermometer (i've got 2 thermometers in all my tanks just to be on the safe side - glass ones and digital - although the glass ones are normally spot on, and a lot cheaper).

Not sure about ill effects to the fish from the cold water - maybe someone else could answer that too.

 

[WILDER]

Juwel heater there crap.
I would buy a new heater, mine got stuck the juwel one and started to over heat, lucky I caught it in time.

 

[BigIan]

we had the same issue with the heater in our trigon 350,
noticed the tank was cold none of the fish showed any ill effects so didn`1t think about it (thermometer wasn`t working so just added it too the list of things to pick up when we next went to the lefs.
when we popped the new one in the tank looked at the thermomenter and it was down around 20 ish, so the folwing day we got a new heater, but none of the fish showed any ill effects, at all and it was probably 2-3 weeks before we got an acurate reading of the temprature

 

[KimA]

Juwel heater there crap.
I would buy a new heater, mine got stuck the juwel one and started to over heat, lucky I caught it in time.

Tis true - had mine for a wee while and about a month ago it got stuck and overheated (typically during the night) - came down in the morning to the tank at 32 degrees !

 

[BigIan]

funnily our one was a jewel heater aswell

 

[sven_sol]

rrriiright

seems thats that then!

What temperature do you normally have the heater set for? Would of thought that it'd take some time for it to get down to 18 degrees.

Thats what I would have thought too. Normally its set at around 23(ish) degrees according to the thermometer.

The thermometer is one of the stick-on-the-outside-of-the-glass jobbies, and it seemed to have been working before.

So, knocking the temperature a little higher might have been bad, *IF* it jams on - fried fish instead frozen fish..



Sven

 

[sven_sol]

Just check the temperature this morning and its at 27 degrees

Tad warm, so I've knocked it down a bit. Give it chance to cool a bit and see what happens in the next couple of hours.


Sven

 

[Captain Retardo]

Best heater out there is hands down the Stealth brand heaters by Marineland

 

[mr williams]

I'm no expert but (this should be my signature) I have two heaters the main Juwel one and another smaller heater that share the load. Just in case one packs up It should give me time to get to the lfs.

 

[The_Eggman_1972]

I had one fail in the ON position and lost a full tank of stock .Yo be safe throw it out and buy a new one for the sake of £15 to £20 it's not worth the risk..

 

[Gandalf-LoJ]

I also had a jewel heater that was stuck on from new! Totally useless. Took it back and they swapped it with a new Jewel heater and they said that they've been re-designed and are much better.

This new one now has a temperature gauge on the top instead of just the +- on the dial. So far it's been rock solid keeping the temperature stable with a .6 degree fluctuation depending on time of day.