Freshwater / Tropical fish dilemma!

On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 08:12:34 -0700, Larry Blanchard
wrote:

wrote:

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 08:48:37 -0700, Larry Blanchard
wrote:

But it's hard to get a decent heater for your
small tank.

6", 25W, unbreakable heaters are available. The trouble is they cost
more than the tank!

And if they stick on, they can overheat a 5 gallon tank in short order!

Yes, I know that but, in my experience, 25W heaters don't stick. The
contacts don't suffer from too many melting sparks. The small,
unbreakable ones are electronic so even less likely to stick.


Despite the "common wisdom" that specifies 5wpg, I put 2-3wpg in my tanks.
They seem quite adequate and give me a bigger safety margin if they stick in
the on position, which I understand is the most common failure mode.

I agree, in fact in a warm room I have a 100 gallon tank with just a
100W heater. If that stuck on it wouldn't even be noticed.


And a 10-15 watt heater for a 5 gallon tank is not, AFAIK, available. There
is a tiny permanently on heater but it gives a water temperature related to
room temperature. If you set your thermostat down at night, as we do, the
tank temperature goes down as well.

The above 100 gallon tank will retain its temperature for hours so
even if it was switched off at night I doubt it would drop more than a
few degrees.

Steve

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