heater question

Yes Mary,

But it is better to buy 2 smaller heaters then 1 big heater.

Inevitibly a heater will stick on at some point. With 2 smaller heaters you run a much smaller chance of cooking your tank.

If you have 1 big heater you may come home some day & your tank is 95 degrees

Not a dumb question by any means

 

Ditto...

I've had good luck with Ebo Jager heaters, but beware, they are very long (a 250 watt is probably close to 18")...so check your sump to make sure you have that kind of room if you go with one of them.

--AJ

 

I used Stealth heaters for a long time on my freshwater tanks. I really like that they are all black and blend in well, and have the plastic outside on them vs. the glass...but over time, they all swelled from the inside out and shorted out on me. There was never any harm to the tank inhabitants when this happened, they just stopped working. That's when I switched to the Jagers. Stealth heaters did a nice job for me when they were working, so I would advise just keep a close eye on your temp and condition of the heaters. If you see a heater that looks like it's starting to swell a little, it's probably time to replace it.

--AJ

 

Check out petsmart.com right now. The 125w Ebo Jagers are $10.70 right now which is really cheap

 

Posted By AJ on 01/29/2010 12:22 PM
Ditto...
I've had good luck with Ebo Jager heaters, but beware, they are very long (a 250 watt is probably close to 18")...so check your sump to make sure you have that kind of room if you go with one of them.
--AJ
Yeah, when mine came for my 90G, I was amazed, the thing was like a dang light saber, to get it in my sump I'm gonna have to fasten it horizontally lol

 

Light saber...nice.    When I got my first Jager in the mail, the size surprised me.  The stealth heaters I had been using were more compact.  I had to lay the 250 in the bottom of my sump diagonally and there was *barely* room for the skimmer to go in...
--AJ

 

For what its worth, Stealth heaters have been upgraded. All of my freshwater tank Stealth heaters had experienced issues (sticking on, not working, or giving shocks) late last year...Marineland replaced them with the new model. So far so good and they now have a light to indicate when they are on - hopefully the other issues have been resolved also. I only have one in use now (had to replace the others with another brand as it took a while for the replacements to get here). I just added a controller to my reef tank and have two heaters in it - to reduce the overheat chance and can better monitor the temp.

 

That's good to hear! Maybe I'll give them another chance sometime in the future.

--AJ