woke up to find my heater not working

[BaileyF]

Just went to turn on their light and feed them breakfast and noticed the temp was dropped down to 70, the light on the heater was on but it was very cold last night i'm guessing either the heater is malfunctioning or just couldn't keep up with the temperature change i turn my house heat very low at night.
How fast should i bring the temp back up? I just put my other heater in there should i crank it and let the tank heat up as quickly as the additional heater will allow? 55 Gal tank So i'm expecting even with the additional heater it will take a few hours to get back up to temp. . . .Any other suggestions?

I'm going to head to home depot and buy some duct work bubble isolation to place on three sides of the tank so this doesn't happen again...

[Chad Hughes]

Bailey,

What size is your tank and how large (how many watts) is your heater? Unless your home is dropping down below 40 degrees at night, an appropriately sized heater should work for you. More than one is recommended in cold climates.

Insulation will help as well!

Best wishes!

[DLock3d]

No suggestions from me as I haven't had this happen yet. What kind of heater was it?

[BaileyF]

aqueon pro 200 watt, tank is a 55gal. i literally just ordered the eighien one everyone on here seems to use like 2 days ago... mines form pets mart its their "top of the line one" and its far better than the cheap aux one i had as back up....

[ericatdallas]

Is this for Discus? What temperature do you normally keep it at? I wouldn't be overly worried about 70F water, especially since it was gradual. I accidentally did a 75% water change using all cold water once that dropped my tank from 85F to 65F before I realized it and then I put warm water in it. It was fortunate that I hadn't completely filled the tank with cold water. I'm sure it's not great for the fish, but they all managed. 70F is chilly but not anything to panic over. I've seen people boastthat's where they keep their Discus, but it's probably on the uncomfortable end of their tolerance.

It doesn't sound like the heater is broken. It would add another 100W or 200W heater for that tank though. If you're trying to do cost effectively, the foam insulation on the sides will help. In fact, I'm thinking of doing that myself.

[Squidman]

I always run 2 heaters for that exact purpose. I have 2 90g tanks and each have 2 200W EJ's on them, plugged into seperate GFI circuits. If one fails the solo one can maintain 78-80, but if one sticks on it can't get the tank over 86. So unless both fail somehow, I'm always in a decent spot.

[BaileyF]

Is this for Discus? What temperature do you normally keep it at? I wouldn't be overly worried about 70F water, especially since it was gradual. I accidentally did a 75% water change using all cold water once that dropped my tank from 85F to 65F before I realized it and then I put warm water in it. It was fortunate that I hadn't completely filled the tank with cold water. I'm sure it's not great for the fish, but they all managed. 70F is chilly but not anything to panic over. I've seen people boastthat's where they keep their Discus, but it's probably on the uncomfortable end of their tolerance.

It doesn't sound like the heater is broken. It would add another 100W or 200W heater for that tank though. If you're trying to do cost effectively, the foam insulation on the sides will help. In fact, I'm thinking of doing that myself.

thank you

I'm more concerned with how fast is too fast to bring it back up... I've got the heaters in there now maxed its come up 1 or 2 degrees already is that too quick? i just don't want to stress them out more than i already have...

[nwehrman]

They should be fine...I've had heaters go out and tanks chilled... Just put the new heater in and let them go back to normal. It's just like a rain shower in the wild...they do not have heaters to hold constant temp. And some breeders even use a cold water change to spurn on breeding..

[Squidman]

Never having tried it before myself, I would think a few degrees an hour should be fine. As long as there is no shock change, I wouldn't worry.

[BaileyF]

They should be fine...I've had heaters go out and tanks chilled... Just put the new heater in and let them go back to normal. It's just like a rain shower in the wild...they do not have heaters to hold constant temp. And some breeders even use a cold water change to spurn on breeding..


oddly enough i had the same thought... it was a cold rain shower last night! ha... thanks for confirming.


back story:
I just finally got these guys on the right track with eating and being medicated and such, i'm still new and these are the last 2 survivors of a very sick group i'd bought at a lfs (i had no idea what i was buying:confused: live and learn sadly i found the what not to buy section on here while looking for help..... ). their putting on weight and coming out of hiding just don't want to do anything to disturb the peace i have to deworm them still wrapping up with their metro treatment. i've spent alot of money trying to keep these sick fish alive finally was looking up ... now i'm all neurotic about the tank and keeping these last 2 alive so i can get them some healthy friends.

[ericatdallas]

thank you

I'm more concerned with how fast is too fast to bring it back up... I've got the heaters in there now maxed its come up 1 or 2 degrees already is that too quick? i just don't want to stress them out more than i already have...

Okay, then +1 on just dropping the heater in. I don't think it can bring the water up too fast anyway. One or two degrees an hour seems too slow to me.

I don't know if I'm reckless or not, but I honestly don't worry too much about temperature swings as long as they're within tolerance levels and I don't do anything extreme.

On a side note, this might offer some comfort. Fish are more tolerant of sudden temperature upswings than they are of sudden temperature downswings.

[BaileyF]

On a side note, this might offer some comfort. Fish are more tolerant of sudden temperature upswings than they are of sudden temperature downswings.

Thats good to know. ugh! i've been dreaming about them... its getting a tad crazy or rather maybe i am...

[BaileyF]

its almost back to 80 and they are out looking for food so i guess it bothered me more then it bothered them. time to feed them!

[nwehrman]

Good!

[daffyfish]

Had the same thing happen, to me, last week.
Dropped down to 74.
I put the new heater in and let it do it thing.
There seems to be no ill effects, from this incident.
Hope all goes well, for your group.

[k7prz]

I messed up last night. Did a water change and unplugged the heaters so they wouldn't break being half out of the water. (Had a Fluval heater burst when
1/2 of it was out of water once.) Normal temp is 83, this morning 66 F. Two full grown Turks in a 30 gallon. Bringing up the temp slow---but how slow should
I go? Dave near Portland, OR

[PaytonGrant]

That's exactly what I've been doing it keeps the tank pretty constant

[pcsb23]

I messed up last night. Did a water change and unplugged the heaters so they wouldn't break being half out of the water. (Had a Fluval heater burst when
1/2 of it was out of water once.) Normal temp is 83, this morning 66 F. Two full grown Turks in a 30 gallon. Bringing up the temp slow---but how slow should
I go? Dave near Portland, ORJust let the heaters bring it up, in most cases they are fine, but just keep an eye on them.

[DiscusLoverJeff]

Funny story to add to this thread regarding a bad heater (not trying to hijack the thread, just commenting).

After having several bad heaters myself, I was told by over 90% of the people here Jagar were the best heaters. So, with that information, I purchased my first (bought 7 actually) a 250 watt for my 95 gallon tank after my Visa-Therm went out, again. Well, I set the blue dial to 84 let it sit in the tank for 30 minutes to adjust, plug it in, hmm, no light going on. Is my water too warm, nope, its 81. So I turn up the dial while in tank to almost 88 before the light came on. Then I adjust it down after 2 hours but guess what, my tank is now 78 degrees. The heater is not working. I turn it up to 92, 2 more hours, the temp is now 80 and holding.

So, this heater may need calibration once I read the instructions or it goes back to F&S for exchange.

See, I don't think it matters what brand heater as they all seem to have issues.

[gerrard00]

So, this heater may need calibration once I read the instructions or it goes back to F&S for exchange.


Yes, they have to be calibrated. Since calibrating mine, it's been rock solid.