Whats the best Internal heater.

[chris]

Hi everyone this old question has come up again, I think ive asked it once before.
Whats the best internal heater. I recently outlaid fair dollars for an Internal Sera 300w heater, it looks flash and also looks like it seals well, running it for two days I couldnt get the temp past 25.5 degrees I like to run it around 30degrees to help keep the nasties away.
I changed it from an Aqua One 300w this was running flatout keeping the tank around 30-31 degrees. It started to make some humming noises and had some moisture in it around the temp setter. It had been running for two years.

The 300w sera has trouble keeping the temp past 26 degrees.
It cost three times more than the AQua one.
Whats your favourite heater and why. My tank is 5x2x2.

[samir]

whats the approximate temp of the room ?

[DiscusMan]

I have a huge tip for you.

Never run only one heater in your tank. If you think you need a 300W then buy two 150 watters.

A club member recently had a issue with his large heater that made soup of his discus in teh tank, At teh time i thought what can you do about a faulty heater but the answer is that if you have two smaller ones adn one gets stuck on it aint powerful enough to cook you fishies.

In terms of brands i would say by the cheapest ones you can find. a $8 heater that may last 1 year or may last 5 is better value than a $50 heater that should last 5 and only lasts 1.

Hope that doesnt sound like ramblings of a mad man :)

Wayne

[FishLover]

You need two 300w heaters instead of one for the size of that tank. Especially if the room temp is way lower than 31C.

Most heaters will heat up the water about few Cs from the room temp. More than that you will need to have more wattages to make it happen because the rate of lost heat will out pace the rate of heating. I think you are over working your heater.

Besides, two heaters are better than one anyway. I had the same issue with keeping water temp high with one filter. Ever since I added another one, no problems so far. I had to lower the settings in the Summer to make sure they are not over heating my tank. Winter time is fine. That's one thing you need to watch if you have two big heaters.

[samir]

In terms of brands i would say by the cheapest ones you can find.

i'm one of the few who will absolutely agree with that, i recommend the orca heaters, when they fail they just go off, i know someone who has been using them for years in large quantities, apparently its the resun heaters that cook when they go bust. if you give me the temperature of your room i'll give you the wattage you need.

[Ben]

i recommend the orca heaters, when they fail they just go off

The same happened to me, cheap resuns do the same. :P

This winter i have thrown out 2 aqua one stainless steel heaters.
They have been going for 2 years, and once again they simply "fused" out and did not turn on.

i have about 9 of them running, and find them to be an excellent heater.
quite cheap if you look in the right places! :wink:

I dont like the way condensation builds up in Jager heaters!
:shock:

[Agent]

HI All, I recently purchased a Stainless Steel "ViaAqua" 200w heater for my hospital tank $20.00 (aprox 60 lt), its great not having to get a wet hand to adjust the temp as the controller is outside the tank, its also supriingly acurate holding a constant 30 dgrees. My 200 lt comunity tank now has 2 Sera glass heaters, it seems to keep the water a more constant temp, than one, when the time comes to upgrade, I'll be going with the S/S again, as one of the glass ones cracked last week, reckon the external controller is the way to go.
Rob...