heater

[jerzeepunk79]

I have this 50 watt heater for my 10 gallon tank: Aquarium Heaters: Visi-Therm Deluxe Heaters

I raised the temp on the heater 2 days ago to around 86-88 degrees but my thermometer isn't going past 81 degrees. Also I noticed that the orange "on" light is not constantly on (I don't know if the light is supposed to be constantly on). I have heater on one side of the tank.

Any ideas why the temp is going past 81 degrees?

 

[Whiskers]

little light should only come on when heater is on. Do you still have the instructions? i think in one of mine it told how, if it was off on temp setting, you could adjust to make indicator closer to being correct. sometimes they are off.

 

[brian1973]

I may have missed something but why are you raising it so high? Like whiskers said it should only be on when the heater is one. You may end up burning it out if it is on to long but im not sure. What is the room temp? it may be to small to effectively overcome the difference in ambient room temp is to great (this is just a theory).

 

[bmoraski]

I have this 50 watt heater for my 10 gallon tank: Aquarium Heaters: Visi-Therm Deluxe Heaters

I raised the temp on the heater 2 days ago to around 86-88 degrees but my thermometer isn't going past 81 degrees. Also I noticed that the orange "on" light is not constantly on (I don't know if the light is supposed to be constantly on). I have heater on one side of the tank.

Any ideas why the temp is going past 81 degrees?

maybe heater is maxed out @ 81 degrees ?

as was posted previously
light should be on when heater is on and if on all the time you may burn it out.
also why did you raise temp ?

 

[jerzeepunk79]

I'm trying to get the temp up to at least 85 degrees to start the fishless cycle. The heater/temp won't be an issue once I have fish in the tank.

I still have the instructions but it doesn't say anything about how to adjust it to compensate for the difference in temp. So what I'm gathering is that the heater goes on/off automatically.

I checked this afternoon (around 2PM) and the temp said 80.5... it is now reading 81.6 (at 9:40PM).

I'm working on getting the room temp... just moved a thermometer inside from outdoors.

Is it ok that the heater is off to one side? Should it be angled? Or more towards the center? I'll try to post a pic of the tank.

 

[brian1973]

I try to keep my heaters either in the middle or over by the filter so the warmer water gets pushed thru the tank, the temp may speed up the cycle but I dont know if it makes that much difference.

 

[jerzeepunk79]

here is a pic of the tank: TwitPic - Share photos on twitter

I will try moving it closer to the filter. If that doesn't work... I give up! I'm going to get some ammonia tomorrow and start the cycle. I'd also like to look into plants this week, so the temp is going to have to go down anyway.

The room temp is 68.5.

 

[brian1973]

at that room temp that heater is probably going to have to work constantly to try to get to that temp, I read somewhere a couple years ago that the average aquarium heater can only heat like 10 degrees above room temp effectively but not sure how true that is.

I dont think it is worth burning up a heater to speed it up a little bit.

 

[jerzeepunk79]

I'm going to lower the heater to about 72 degrees. This way I'll be able to add plants within the next week or two. I'm not in a rush, so I don't need a high temp to speed things along... if that is even the case.

The room temp is now up to 71 degrees.