Clicking Heater?

[Katty]

I have a 50w heater in my 20 gallon tank that whenever it's on (light is glowing and stuff) it'll click constantly, as frequent as once or twice a second. It's been doing this for atleast a month or two, but the clicking while it's on has become more frequent now.

I previously had this heater in a 10 gallon tank, in a vertical position for over a year and it did not do the clicking. Then I upgraded the 10g to a 20g tank and just moved the old heater into it. I put the heater in the 20g in a horizontal position instead and turned it up from 78 to 80 degrees for the blue ram I'm keeping in there now.

So why could it be clicking? Is the clicking impending doom and do I need to get a new one? Ideally I'd be able to just replace it but I'm sort of low on money and I'm not too impressed with the models the store is carrying right now. It's a dependable heater-- it just clicks.

 

[OldMan47]

Try placing that heater a bit more vertical so that heat from the heater part arrives at the thermostat. That should give it a somewhat stable temperature to measure and react to. The other thing that may be happening is that a simple adjustment to a new value may have left behind an oxide deposit where the previous adjustment was. If you have markings on the heater control, try wiping the contact area by simply raising and lowering the thermostat a few times and then set it back to your setting. If none of this helps, it is time to start thinking about a new heater before the one you have fails.