Nearly Boiled My Fish

[ColR1948]

I'm not 100% sure but I think one of them was the manger.

 

[Mikey1]

not wanting to disagree I recently read not sure if it was on here or not but someone said if you have 2 heaters they can trick each other and you don't get a proper water temperature.

not true at all....i have many tanks with multiple heaters....

not sure how i would ever heat my 600 gallon using one single heater

 

[Animal Lover 2000]

please i want to know the name of the store

 

[sadguppy]

please i want to know the name of the store

As he's in Manchester in the UK and you're in the USA I don't think it will be of much use, and it'll get the thread locked most likely

 

[coolie]

To play devils advocate, the logic says 2 heaters are better than 1, but statistically, you are twice as likely to encounter a fault with twice the number of heaters.

 

[cms091]

To play devils advocate, the logic says 2 heaters are better than 1, but statistically, you are twice as likely to encounter a fault with twice the number of heaters.

Yes, but statistically, the effect of a failure is halved!

 

[CezzaXV]

To play devils advocate, the logic says 2 heaters are better than 1, but statistically, you are twice as likely to encounter a fault with twice the number of heaters.

Yes, but statistically, the effect of a failure is halved!

Is it though?

Say you have two heaters and one of them stops working. Now you've got one working heater that is working overtime to heat a tank that it's not powerful enough to heat and is probably going to break as well. Now you've got two broken heaters instead of one.

To be honest, I think heaters breaking is a rare enough occurrence that people should just go with whatever method they are most comfortable with. I've got a single 200W heater in my 155L tank. I keep it at 24.5C, but I use cold water for my changes and it usually drops to around 22C. It takes hours for it to get back up to 24.5C. I feel comfortable in the fact that if this heater did get stuck on, it would take forever for it to raise the temperature to lethal levels, and I would be home before then. I guess it depends how overpowered the heater is for your tank.

I'm not saying heaters never break, but it doesnt happen often enough for me to worry.

 

[ColR1948]

Well you say they don't break often, the funny thing is the original heater I had did break so I bought another one and that too was faulty.
Now a few weeks prior to this I have another 20L tank and the heater in that broke, luckily I was cycling it so no fish in there, the problem was I had only had it a few weeks but lost the receipt so I couldn't return it, and guess what I got it from the same lfs as the faulty one, so are you thinking a pattern is developing here I certainly am?
Any way going on from that I bought another 25w for the 20L and I'm now thinking of taking that back (not the same lsf by the way) as this one is not getting the to the right temperature, I have it set for 25c and over tha last few days it won't go any higher than 22c, I suppose I could alter the setting higher than 25c but the fact is the thermostat is faulty.

So this rare occurrence of heaters not breaking, I'm getting more than my fair share.

 

[bmonki]

you seem to be on a run of bad luck! ours is just a cheapy maidenhead aquatics own brand one, and the mil tank is the argos value one lol! our MA one needs to be set 2 degrees higher on the thermostat to maintain correct temp though but i have it on one end so that is maybe why

Well you say they don't break often, the funny thing is the original heater I had did break so I bought another one and that too was faulty.
Now a few weeks prior to this I have another 20L tank and the heater in that broke, luckily I was cycling it so no fish in there, the problem was I had only had it a few weeks but lost the receipt so I couldn't return it, and guess what I got it from the same lfs as the faulty one, so are you thinking a pattern is developing here I certainly am?
Any way going on from that I bought another 25w for the 20L and I'm now thinking of taking that back (not the same lsf by the way) as this one is not getting the to the right temperature, I have it set for 25c and over tha last few days it won't go any higher than 22c, I suppose I could alter the setting higher than 25c but the fact is the thermostat is faulty.

So this rare occurrence of heaters not breaking, I'm getting more than my fair share.

just a thought... do you have the heater plugged into a surge protected extension lead? perhaps you are getting power surges for some reason which are causing the heaters to go mental?

 

[ColR1948]

No they are plugged in to the normal socket plus one is in another room too, good thought though.

Funny you mentioned Maidenhead Aquatics, I got the the 25w from there and that is the one that won't go any higher so going off what you said I may need to raise it a little.

 

[Mikey1]

To play devils advocate, the logic says 2 heaters are better than 1, but statistically, you are twice as likely to encounter a fault with twice the number of heaters.

Yes, but statistically, the effect of a failure is halved!

Is it though?

Say you have two heaters and one of them stops working. Now you've got one working heater that is working overtime to heat a tank that it's not powerful enough to heat and is probably going to break as well. Now you've got two broken heaters instead of one.

"working overtime" is not going to cause a heater to break, what brand do you use?

 

[bmonki]

our MA one is set at 27, tank temp between 24 and 25

(and its turned itself off so it thinks its warm enough... so its not constantly on either)

 

[ColR1948]

I know years ago most heaters were preset and you couldn't alter them, I do remember I had one once where you could alter it and the controller was outside the tank, it was a small box suck on with suckers if I remember rightly.

The one I got from MA is an AuaOne, I just had a look at it and I know I haven't got the receipt but it does have a serial number on the (Passed) sticker I wonder if I emailed them and mentioned it.
Im not being a skinflint but if they never get to know they will think everything they turn out is OK, they need to know if they have faulty ones I think.



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[snazy]

our MA one is set at 27, tank temp between 24 and 25

(and its turned itself off so it thinks its warm enough... so its not constantly on either)

This could be rather a problem with lack of flow in the tank. The heated water around the heater doesn't get replaced with colder water fast enough(where the thermometer is for example) Or you need to position it diagnonally, because the warmer water goes up and can fool the thermostat into switching itself of, even if the bottom water is colder but it again is mostly because of lack of flow.

 

[bmonki]

our MA one is set at 27, tank temp between 24 and 25

(and its turned itself off so it thinks its warm enough... so its not constantly on either)

This could be rather a problem with lack of flow in the tank. The heated water around the heater doesn't get replaced with colder water fast enough(where the thermometer is for example) Or you need to position it diagnonally, because the warmer water goes up and can fool the thermostat into switching itself of, even if the bottom water is colder but it again is mostly because of lack of flow.

it's at a 45 degree angle, and the spray bar from the filter runs right next to it... the thermometer is the other end where the spray bar is only an inch or two from aswell. (its a big spray bar that covers nearly the entire back wall of the tank, with the stronger current end being next to the heater) so i doubt it's that. we had the same problem with our old internal filter in place too it's not a problem for us tbh, i just rely on the thermometer rather than the heater to determine the setting on the thermostat... it keeps the temp steady even if i move the thermometer closer to the heater its the same