Heater?
 

Just wondering what most reefers are using for heaters. I know everyone has there favorite. Right now I am using a rena cal 300watt. The damn thing is set on 84, water only gets to 80 at the end of the day.. Which is fine but when we are gone all day for work, my heater is not on at the house. Temp in house gets to about 62-63 tank drops to 78 possibly lower. I get home keep house at 68-70 heater in tank has np keeping water 79-80.. What shall I do? Get another heater? I always can add one but only have 1 outlet left... might need it one day for something like a phos reactor who knows) would like to keep my temp all day all night about 80. Others have probs like this?

I use a ranco controller with two 300 watt titanium heaters.
I never have had a problem with my tank even getting one degree too cold.

You need more wattage to be able to keep up with the heat loss.

Split the needed wattage between 2-3 heaters instead of one large heater. In your case (3) 200W heaters or (2) 300W heaters would would likely be sufficient.

All heaters are junk. You need to connect them to a RANCO contoller and let IT provide the logic. You can then set each hetaers integrated thermostat to just slightly higher than the RANCO is set for. That way on the off chance that the RANCO did fail ON, the integrated thermostats would act as a failsafe and keep the tank from overheating.

Placing the heaters in the intake compartment of the sump, where they are NOT fully submerged will also prove to be a much better solution. The intake compartment of the sump does not drop in water level due to evaporation and therefore the heaters will never run dry either.

These simple steps will help to prevent almost every heater related disaster!

Will have to check up on the ranco controller. I am prob going to go with 2 300 watt heaters or possibly one 300 and a 200. Thanks for the help)

You can get a single stage ranco for very reasonable in the sellers forum. I got mine new for $40. Good luck

I have a rancho and a Ti heater and it makes me nervous. if the sensor gets bumped out of the water the heater will fry the tank. I need to find a good heater with internal themostat. THinking about jager

Rishma,

The Ranco is magnitudes more reliable than ANY aquarium heater will ever be. If you are concerned about the temp probe, then weight it down. To ditch a Ranco in favor of the built in thermostat of a hobby heater makes no sense at all.

hahaha!!!! I had to re-read my post. I see how it was misleading.

I didnt mean ditch the Ranco, just plug in a thermostat controlled heater set to a slightly higher temp so the upper limit of the heater will provide a layer of protection. Just as you suggest above.

Ditch the Ranco.....that would be just silly.

:)

Heater thermostats normaly fail due to metal fatigue and arc damage. The Ranco takes the arcing and fatigue away and therefore the heaters thermostat is much more reliable in the rare chance that it is needed!

[QUOTE][i]<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11579674#post11579674 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rishma [/i]
[B]I didnt mean ditch the Ranco, just plug in a thermostat controlled heater set to a slightly higher temp so the upper limit of the heater will provide a layer of protection.[/B][/QUOTE]
Smart! Controller probes fall out of the tank more often than people think. A controller and a thermostatic heater in series is a good way to go. I would not put all of my eggs in one basket.

is there an echo in here :D

I know, I am a genius:lol: