Extra gear???

[Magnum Man]

so, I'm newly back into the aquarium hobby, & I was most impressed with the advances in heaters the 15 years I was gone from the hobby... however, now, I have a 4 month old heater that quit working... maybe those old glorified light bulb heater were more reliable than the new ones??? any way I was lucky, in that I caught it pretty much right away, as it was my water change day, & I'm setting up several built in tanks that have sat for 15 years, & I had a new heater here for the next aquarium I was setting up, I've yet to add water to it, so I had a new in box replacement..

so in todays day & age, I suppose I should keep an extra or two of most of my vital equipment, that I've bought new???

funny thing is, I'm 100% good on none of my older tanks leaking ( my be jinxing myself there ) the next to start up, is an acrylic 55 gallon ( fingers crossed ) the 1st one I started up was a very old non tempered glass 55 gallon... aside from the scratches of decades of use, it seems to be holding up fine... chances of new aquariums lasting that long, are probably pretty slim

 

[sharkweek178]

I have a spare heater and set of lights on hand if anything happens to mine. I also use two filters for my tank, one HOB and the other is a sponge filter. Each one has the capacity to filter the tank by itself. The sponge filter is hooked up to an air pump with a battery back up. So worst case scenario, my tank wouldn't go without some level of filtration for long.
I'm big on redundant back up plans.

 

[Byron]

The heater is the most important piece of equipment. Lights can fail, and filters may fail, with no major disaster (unless the tank is overstocked anyway), but a failing heater can cook or freeze a tank of fish overnight. I had one.

So always spend the money for quality. And, the higher wattage the more reliable seems to be true. And, two in a tank over 3-feet in length.

I had an Eheim Pro II canister with a built in heating unit. It ran continuously for over 20 years, and that 90g tank had the most consistent temperature year-round. I believe others have mentioned inline heaters, I know nothing of these. But they along with the canister with heating unit do mean no heaters in the aquarium.

 

[sharkweek178]

The heater is the most important piece of equipment. Lights can fail, and filters may fail, with no major disaster (unless the tank is overstocked anyway), but a failing heater can cook or freeze a tank of fish overnight. I had one.

So always spend the money for quality. And, the higher wattage the more reliable seems to be true. And, two in a tank over 3-feet in length.

I had an Eheim Pro II canister with a built in heating unit. It ran continuously for over 20 years, and that 90g tank had the most consistent temperature year-round. I believe others have mentioned inline heaters, I know nothing of these. But they along with the canister with heating unit do mean no heaters in the aquarium.

This got me thinking. I've been meaning to get one of those power strips with a battery back up for my heater. I'm a little worried about what would happen if the power went out for an extended period in winter.

 

[Ram419]

This got me thinking. I've been meaning to get one of those power strips with a battery back up for my heater. I'm a little worried about what would happen if the power went out for an extended period in winter.

I've got a few small battery backups that last a couple hours running only the pumps/filters. The second I plug one heater in it draws way too much power and the UPS goes crazy. So I don't use heaters on battery backup. I do use them on a a generator if needed though, which I have had to use this summer once already to keep pumps going, not heat of course but if it was winter.

 

[Magnum Man]

so as far as air pumps... back when I was into fish keeping 15 years ago I bought some new fishing bait buckets that I used to transport fish, they were a plastic bucket, with a Styrofoam lining, & came with a "D" cell battery power air pump, & a small air stone... I still have those down by my tanks, I should see if the pumps still run... I just looked on amazon, I did not find pumps like mine anymore, but there are literally 100's of battery powered air pumps available right now, at a wide range of prices

 

[Endlersendlers]

I have an Inkbird heater controller. You plug the heaters into it and it controls power to them by its own thermostat, prevents runaway heaters. I had one of those too, caught it before losing fish but it set the plants back significantly.