Aquarium heaters discus

[Oli]

Because discus are so expensive, I’m looking at some measures I can take to keep safe.

Note - the heater that comes with my tank (405 litres) is a 500W heater (AquaEl Platinum 500)

I know having 2 heaters is beneficial incase one were to fail. Will having 2 heaters also use less energy (therefore cost less in power bills)? I assume 1 heater at 28c and higher is likely to keep flicking on and off all the time, as opposed to 2 heaters? What option will use less energy?

I’ve also come across the Inkbird temperature controller. I like the idea that if the heater were to malfunction and either get too hot or too cold I would be notified. Speaking of this, can heaters actually generate enough heat to get too hot for discus if it were to malfunction?

The only problem I can see with the inkbird, is it only has 1 power plug, so can only be used with one heater?

 

[Oli]

I’m also reading people recommend having the heaters themselves set to a higher temperature then you have programmed the inkbird. For example, I’d you want the tank at 28c, set the heaters themselves to 30c, but programme the inkbird for 28.

Why is this?

 

[Lillypad101]

I don’t know about the Inkbird, but I do know that I once had a heater malfunction and heat the tank to 92. Nearly fried all my fish! I caught it in time though and got a new heater. It would be safer to have two heater in case one broke. Discus are hard fish to keep and are very sensitive to changes, so check the temperature daily, or even twice daily to ensure the temperature is in check.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I breed expensive plecos as well as having a number of planted community tanks. I had two different heaters on completely different tanks. Both the heaters got stuck full on. I should also mention I normally use two heaters in most of my tanks. I prefer to have more heating than needed. So if I have a tank on which I would normally put 200w, instead I use a pair of 16-w heaters.

Almost all of my heaters are placed close to the bottom of the tank horizonatally. I do this because they heat better than if placed veritically. Two heaters give me a back-up if one fails to work. They also heat more efficiently as well.

So the first tank that I had the failutre in was a 40 breeder with a pair of wild discus, a small group of rummynose tetras and 5 L450 plecos being grown out to breed. I was working on another tank in the room one day and happened to glance at the 40. I noticed one discus thet seemed to be stuck to a filter intake- not a goo sign. When I opened the lid of the tank I had a heat wave come out. That discus was dead, the second one was also dead but floating at the surface in the plants. the tetras were all balls of mush. The thermometer said the water was 104F. But all of the L450s were hunkered down in caves and alive. They spawned a few weeks later.

I chalked this all up to bad luck and did nothing besides replacing the heater.

And then it happened again in another tank some time later. That tank held a breeding group of Budrovcan line L236. It had about 30 fry in it as well as the 10 breeding fish. This time the tenk temp was 119F. I had fed the tank the night before and all was fine, The next day I had 33 gals pf pleco soup. the heater was a different brand than the first. Fortunately I had more offspring in a grow tank and was able to create a new breeding group.

That was when I decided I needed to use a controller on pleco tanks. I found one made by Azoo. It worked in C not F which was OK. It was very basic. I could plug in as many heaters as I needed as long as I kept the total watts under 1,000. It had one setting- what temp. did I want. The nice part of this unit was that in C it meant there was more than 1 dg F between the C numbers. I work in F. What this did was to create some space between what F number changes had to happen before it triggered a change in the C reading. This was like giving a small range above and below the F equivalent of C before the unit would turn the heater on or off.

When I began to buy the Azoo units they ran about $22. I had 3. Then when Live Aquaria bought out Drs FosterSmith, Live did away with a lot of the equipment offerings. They put the Azoos on sale for about $12 and I bought 5. A week later I wanted to get more but they were all gone. Since then I added several more for about $52 each as the only place i could find them charged that.

I hated to pay so much and having heard good things about inkbird I tried one. I never used it and sent it back. it was way more complex than I needed. Too many settings I had no need for and which made doing what I did too complex. One the Axoo you can set the temp in C from between 20 to 35 °C and an accuracy with ± 1 °C. It has one button which sets the temp. Each button push increases the set temp bb 1 dg C. Because I am breeding plecos I need to change the water temp. at time to induce spawning. I can go from 20 to 35 C with 14 fast pushes.in about 17 seconds.

The inkbird was just to much work and I do not need that. I cannot comment on the quality or reliability of Inkbird only that is is way more complicated than I need or want. We have a house thermostat free from our oil co. It takes 5-10 minutes to change anything. We use it only on manual. Hit an up or down button to change the set temp. by 1 dg at a time and ,when done push, hold- it takes about 10 seconds to raise or lower the temp. It has a sliding swwitch to choose cool- off- heat. Simple and very reliable.

I now have 12 of the Azoos on tanks. The oldest one is at least 10 years and the newest is about 3 years old. So far every one has worked perfectly. Simple and reliable, you folks can have the Inkbirds. All I need to do is to set a desired temp. and done. Bo ranges not colling vs. heating etc.

As for how much good a controller can do, it can only save one from over heating. A heater can only heat,m it cannot cool. So the conteoller can save a tank from getting too hot but not too cold. But what if the failure is in the controller? For that I set the temp on my heaters which have both C and F on the setting scale at 1 dg F higher than the C setting translates into F. Normally I am running the tanks between 62- and 86, But at the peak of a dry season I have to get the water temp up to the low 90s F before I onset the rainy season. I have no problems doing this and I set the heaters to 86F.

However, it is important to understand the nature of the problems a controller might have. One is that it goes weird on the temperature setting or measurement and gets stuck in the on position. My heaters will still go off at 86F (30C) even if the controller tries to keep them going higher or staying on. The one thing the controller cannot do is to make a broken heater work. If a heater fails to turn on when it should, the controller won't heat the tank.

In this day and age I am sure somebody (maybe even Inkbird) makes a unit that sends one a text if the tank gets too cold or even too hot. For me this is of no use as I do not use a smart phone. I do have a flip phone that is pay by the minute. It is for emergency use when away from home only and it is turned off over 95% of the time. I had ATT disable the texting on it as I do not text but and I was getting incoming spam texts for which I had to pay to receive. But I am a senior and basically analog at heart and I hate push advertising.

 

[Oli]

With an inkbird, you can programme a desired temperature e.g. 28c. You can then programme an alarm system for example (27c and 29c) It will notify your phone if these temperatures are reached. I like the idea I could be away from the house, and be notified if the heater were too fail, either failing to heat, or heating too high

 

[seangee]

The inkbird 306 series has two heating sockets (no cooling) so support two heaters. I have the wifi version in one tank and the non-wifi in the other 3.
The newer wifi version (which I do not have) has the added benefit of two probes so you get notified of a probe failure. I can't remember how many years I have been using these but the only issues I have ever had with them is probe failures and I also set the heaters to shut off to protect against this.

The reason I set the heaters to slightly higher than the inkbird is to stop "flickering". When the tank gets to the required temp the power is cut to both heaters and that's it. If you set it to the same or lower temp you could get the situation where a heater turns itself off before the inkbird and then you have it coming on and off every few minutes. So in effect I am not using the heater's thermostat at all, except as a fail safe.

 

[Colin_T]

You can use 1 or 2 heaters, 2 is better in a big tank.

If you insulate the base, back and sides of the tank with 1-2 inch thick polystyrene foam sheets, it will trap a lot of heat and reduce the power used.

You should also have coverglass on the tank to stop fish jumping out and to trap heat. Use 4, 5 or 6mm thick glass, rather than the 2 or 3mm thick stuff sold in most pet shops.

Set the tank up near an inside wall so it isn't getting cold from cool transferring through outside walls.

Have the tank in a room where lots of people move around. This helps the fish get used to movement and they won't become shy.

I like discus tanks to be around 27C so if the fish get sick, you can raise it up to 28-30C.

If you are getting a group of discus, buy them all at the same time and make sure they are all the same size. If you have some fish in a tank and add more a few weeks later, the newcomers usually get bashed.

Try to get fish that are 3-4 inches in diameter and make sure they are eating at the shop. Also see if any are doing stringy white poop. If they are, avoid getting any of the fish from that tank because stringy white poop in discus is bad.

The following link has lots of info on discus including their diet, which should be mainly plant based.

the discus fish Symphysodon - SciELO - M.MOAM.INFO

Dec 22, 2008 - of the lake hosting more than a thousand discus. Only 16 of the 41 ..... ing free-swimming B. cichlae wit...

m.moam.info

 

[Oli]

The discus are from a local importer, who quarantines and deworms for 2 weeks. All his discus look fantastic. I will be buying probably 9 fish all at once, all 10cm or bigger.

This the tank https://www.aquaristiconline.com.au/products/aquaelglossy150-black

I won’t be insulating the tank, as it is a large, expensive display tank

 

[Colin_T]

You can still insulate the tank. Just tape polystyrene foam sheets to the outside of the glass.

 

[Oli]

That will look incredibly tacky, the tank will be in the middle of the room, visible from all angles. I’m sure the heaters will do the job but insulation is out the equation

 

[Oli]

Can anyone answer whether or not 2 heaters will use more, or less energy than 1.