Temp drop. 77 to 71

[recliner]

In a 28 hour time span my tank dropped from 77 to 71. I never had to use a heater before to keep my tank in the 77-78 range. It's in my basement so the temp stays pretty steady, but while I was gone it dropped from 77 to 71.

Everything seems ok. I had re-aqua scaped before I left and most of my green star polyps are still retracted. I put a heater in now and set it to 78. Is there a problem with raising the temp back to that as quick as the heater can? I bet it will take several hours for the heater to do it.

Before anyone says I should have always had the heater in to prevent this...I had a heater malfunction a month ago while I was using it to heat my water change water and it heated it higher then 95. So since then I've been gun shy about using a heater in my tank since it always stayed the same.

 

[ErinCahir]

A lot of us use two heaters that together equal the number of watts we would need so there is no risk of a tank boil.

And you should be fine heating the water up as quickly as the heater can manage. It'll be gradual enough.

 

[recliner]

Thanks, I have a 150 gal tank. I'm not using the digital heater that boiled the 30 gallons of water change water. Just using a dial type heater.

 

[poksal]

This threaded started as a got too cool how fast can I warm it up thread, but I like where it went.

I do not let my heater decide when to come on or go off.. I have read too many scary stories of heater failures. Then I went online and checked the reviews of all the heaters.. it seems all are not what they once were. .. the reviews are full of upset tank keepers.

So, I turn my heater up to about 85°f and run it off a professional grade temperature controller which defaults to no power to the heater. This will at least assure me of no boil-over. .. at the very least improve the odds of not having one by a huge margin.

As I have mentioned before, (no I don't sell them or have any interest in them, but AM very impressed) the temperature controller I use is only about $35 after you pay postage. It is intended for professional manufacturing situations and controls my tank temperature at 79°f +/-.4°.. that is a point in front of the four .. however it does take some wiring skill.

I have one on my reef tank and on my change water tank.

I went inside one of my heaters and completely by passed all the crap which was intended to control the heat.. and wired it through a relay to my controller... the temperature control guts inside were absolute "junk"... .

There are plenty of good aquarium temperature controllers on the market, I'd never trust the current quality of heater controls built into the units. We have too much invested in the lives of too many animals in our tanks. ... my opinion, your mileage may vary..

-randy

 

[Amba]

I use the RKL to control my heat.

 

[G_Beck_87]

+1 Amba i do too its awesome, but my heater rarely comes on due to my BC gets up to 82 if i don't use a fan.