Heating question

jag2232

jag2232

Member
Hey, well I set up my 75 gallon over the summer and I'm coming to my first winter now with it and want to make sure I run into no problems with heating. Right now I have two cascade heaters, both 200 watt and set to 78 degrees and over the summer the temperature stayed at about 78. Well today was the first snow so I checked to see how warm my fish tank is now that the house is dropping down a bit and its only about 73-74 degrees. Well I live in upstate new york and we can get some very brutal winters here and I don't want my tank to drop down anymore than where its at so I had a few questions about heating. I also have a 300 watt cascade heaters, so should I ditch one of the 200s and put that in or are these heaters just bad to begin with?
 
drtito

drtito

Member
I find its better if you have as many as you can in the water. So if you have two more 300´s apart from the two 200¨s already in the water just add them to the system at the same temp. It should keep the water from dropping any futher. Good luck HTH.
 
nordy

nordy

Active Member
I think that 400 watts of heating capacity should be more than enough for your 75, even if you keep your room temp cool. Have you checked to see if both of your 200W units are actually coming on and heating the water? Even if they have one of those little lights you can't really tell if they are working unless they are warm to the touch. I have one 200W in my 55gal tank and it works well at keeping it at the right temp.
It is a good idea to have more than one heater in case one of them fails, as they so often seem to do, so that you will always have at least one working.
 
1990jpyj

1990jpyj

Member
in my 55g i have a 150 watt that i have been useing for about a week now. my old one just went caput so i bought a titanium heater w/digital controls. but its been in the 30-40's in IL and i havnt noticed a big diff. going from my 200 to the 150 yet. i would say pull out 1 of the 200 replace with the 300 and then keep that other in just in case(leave it unpluged) that way if it gets low then you plug it in. but i dont think you should ahve this problem.
 
zman1

zman1

Active Member
How low are you letting your home temp get to at night? Do you do a setback on your thermostat?
 
zman1

zman1

Active Member
The reason I ask, 400 watts on a 75 should be adequate, unless you are dropping dramatically on your home thermostat. Also, be aware that the marks on the mechanical bimetal heaters are typically way off. You need to calibrate it manually by changing the temp so that it cycles properly by watching it. This can take a while to accomplish. Some have a larger differential temp between on-off-on, so you want to watch that as well. Don't go by the mechanical pointer! Digitals are better with tight on-off-on cycles, but stay away from WON digitals.
Also make sure you have good water movement passing the heater so it can more effeciently heat the tank.
 
jag2232

jag2232

Member
I'm going to try to replace the 200 watt on the left side of my tank with the 300 watt I have. Both of them are turning on but I don't think this side is doing it properly. I bought two of the same thermometer and the one on the left isn't performing as well as the one on the right when hey are both set at the same temperature so hopefully that fixes things. How much do these digital heaters tend to go for? I feel like it'd be a nice thing to have so I could adjust the temperature properly between seasons. The house goes down to 68 degrees at night I think and during the day while no ones home.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top