Are substrate heaters necessary?

[thewarning]

I've been reading from several sources the importance of substrate heaters. However, they are somewhat expensive and it seems like few people actually use them. I'd like to know what everybody here thinks.

[Roy]

They arent necessary at all, with a good substrate and lighting you will still get good growth.
I do however use substrate heating (red sea root therm) on my display tank.
I believe i had better growth with it than i did before, so i will continue to use it.
Its a personal preference, no reason you shouldnt get excellent growth without them.

Roy

[ILLUSN]

you can get excellent growth without substrate heating, it just takes a little more work, make sure all you root feeders have a good supply near their roots (i fertilize very 3 months around my swords) and every now and then (6-12 weeks) give the substrate a good once over with the gravel vac to freshen up the substrate and help move around the nutrients for the plants roots.

[Davo]

No.

[Erk]

I wondered this as well....its too late for me to add them now if I needed to! haha...but I DONT use them, and it seems my plants grow fine..like ILLUSN said, make take a lil more work, and ferts...and the growth may be a tad slower, but I dont think there is anything wrong with that. Try to shoot for a good substrate....I use carib sea eco-complete live plant substrate, and I think a good bit of other people on this forum do too, with some good results.

Good luck :D
Eric

[Bald_noggin]

I have installed 2x40 Watt Red Sea Root Therm substrate heaters in my 6x2x2. It has now been running for one week, the water temp is 28 degrees C constantly and my normal aquarium heater dosen't come on at all.

I know the Dupla branded Substrate Heaters are expensive, more so if you purchase a temperature controller for them. Red Sea offer a cheaper costing substrate heating system which is one reason why I went with it. The other was after reading alot about this style of heating and the idea of convection currents within the substrate moving wastes and nutrients about to and from the plants roots, I thought I'd give it a go.

So my goal was to gently heat the substrate and use a standard heater to heat the reset of the tank as per the products recommendations to get these convection currents going.

Now it seems the two that I installed are heating the tank quite suffieciently on their own. The two I installed are recommended for a tank of 800 litres capacity where as my tank is 680, so I've gone slightly over there. They are heating it so well that come summer time, I'm more that likely going to have to install some sort of temperature control for them.

Now, do I think that they are neccessary? No, but this is a tank that I don't intend to touch to much once it's up a going other than regular water changes and plant trimming. As Roy said, 'It's a personal preference'

[ellwa]

I purchased a Hydor system when I was in the states last year, and only just installed it recently, and its doing a fantastic job, tank temp is constant from about 29-31.

very happy with it, and all the new growth seems great, especially the swords. they've doubled in size in a matter of about 2 weeks.

also my other stemmy plants are going great guns.

if you can afford it, I'd recommend it, but its not essential by any stretch.

additional to that, im looking forward to getting my CO2 running again when I get a new "O" ring for my reg.

ellwa.

[nornicle]

good to know you guys can heat your tanks with substrate heaters and are not having any adverse plant reaction (as in the substrate isn't TOO hot)

I'm planning on using hte Dupla Duplmat 300/temp controller and 4X2X2 rated substrate cables for my 3'X14'X18' as the sole heating... we'll see how it does this winter :D

[Roy]

Heating with cables in Sydney wouldnt be too bad i imagine.
Here in Melbourne you need a little extra oomph.
My Hydor external isnt keeping the tank up to spec at the moment, so im thinking its time to put a proper heater in.

Roy

[Bald_noggin]

I'm planning on using the Dupla Duplmat 300/temp controller and 4X2X2 rated substrate cables for my 3'X14'X18' as the sole heating... we'll see how it does this winter :D

Good to see you're going to purchase a controller with that. As it's over-rated for that tank size, I'd say you are going to need it.

I'm waiting on my 'AC Optically Isolated interface board' for my tank controller to turn up. Once it has, it will be put into service controlling my temperature via the substrate heating. Especially for summer time.