Tank Heating Up, Need Help!

[ohiorn67]

I have a 90 gallon....have always had it maintained on a constant 78-80 degrees...we have added 2-1200 powerheads which is all I can think of that would change my heating. I swear I have my thermostat on 72 and it today it went to 84. I have never seen it that high...my lights have never had any effect on changing temp so not sure what the deal is. turned them off and unplugged the 2 new powerheads, I did notice now down to 82 but no lower yet. I had a total of 5 powerheads, one in each upper corner and one center turning.....is this my issue and what can I do to maintain my heat again???

 

[bigarn]

Sounds to me like your heater might be on the way out. Your talking a difference of 10 degrees between the heater setting and actual water temp ..... yep, I think it's the heater.

 

[ohiorn67]

my thought also but I would have thought my heater would have run cold. This heater is one of those new nice ones and is a 300W....ticks me off!! hope my tank will be ok for a bit.....

 

[bigarn]

Yeah .... it sucks when they're pretty new and it happens. It's probably a stuck or bad thermostat.

 

[exile415]

where do you live is it hot ?

 

[ohiorn67]

it has been in mid 70's here but my air temp in house has not changed...going to get unplug it tomorrow,see if it drops, wont go below 82....then if it moves to it's norm of 80 I will run and get another therm tomorrow....

 

[mombostic]

Some powerheads can add heat to the tank. When I added new lighting, I ended up having to take the cover off of my tank because the temp kept climbing.

 

[gfk]

is there a heater/thermostat that will keep your tank at a certain temp? i have a cheapy heater and have to adjust it and look at my termometor to get it at the temp i want

 

[ohiorn67]

HI, I did go ahead and purchase a new thermostate just in case. I have 5 powerheads on the tank so I am sure they are adding some heat. I purchased one of the best thermostats on the market 2 months ago for this tank but must be failing. I have this one in and the temp has not gone up but is constant at the moment at 82.00.....thermostat set on 78....but should not come on until tank at that or would be below.....another good one hopefully...seems to be slowly going down .....hope it continues, have watched it very close today....

 

[vmarius1]

1) make sure it's not your thermostat.
2) It's getting warm outside. Is your air conditioning coming on?
3) make sure your tank is not in a hot spot that the air can't get too.Put a themomat above your tank to see if it's as cool as your house. remember, the lights will raise your temp. Compare the two.
4) if all else fails, a temporary solution, thanks to Hooters, is to place some ice cubes in a zip lock bag and place it it your tank to lower temp.....you should drink more beer...LOL. BTW, make sure the zip lock will not leak into your tank. It probably will contain chlorine or other bad stuff.

 

[ohiorn67]

Too funny!! thanks for the great advice. Actually I purchased a new heater earlier today....it is expensive and has a light so we can tell if it is coming on or not. We set it low on purpose...78....tank did not get lower than 82 still.....the biggest change we made this week was adding 2 more 1200 maxijet powerheads. We have come to the conclusion that we had too many powerheads (5) and that this was causing us somehow extra heat. Weird, cause my thermostat was set on like 70 this morning before new one went in and tank still so high....not like powerheads could support the tank with heat......but we have since done a water change, taken out 2 of the 5 powerheads and now at 80.5...whew!!! taking it down slow...so have the therm set on 80 for tonight/tomorrow and then will take it down to 78-79 where I always had it before the next day...hope this is as easy as it sounds! Nothing seems disturbed so probably affected nothing.