Visi-Therm Heaters Are A Waste

metweezer

metweezer

Active Member
I have my visi-therm heater set at 73 degrees (because I know how inaccurate they are). My QT is showing 80.1 degrees and the heater light is on. I will never buy one again. I bought an Azoo 50 watt and it came with a 3 foot cord
What the heck am I supposed to do with that (add an extension cord)? Any other recommendations?
Thanks, Steve
 
kevin34

kevin34

Active Member
Are you talking about the standard visi-therms or the visi-therm stealths? I have a few stealths and they work fine.
 
metweezer

metweezer

Active Member
No, I am talking about the standard glass ones which they call Deluxe. You like the stealths? Are they accurate? I want 50 watts as I have a 10 gal QT and 2 for my DT (29 gal). Thanks for replying,
Steve
 
kevin34

kevin34

Active Member
Ya the stealths are good. I just used them while I was doing a leak test on my tank. I have 2 250w in my 125g. The water was pretty cold to start so it took a while to get the temp up but I had them set at 79 degrees and the tank stayed around 78-79 with small .2 or .3 changes thoughout the day. Nothing that could cause a problem.
 
wyndraven

wyndraven

New Member
I have a 150w Stealth in my 30g reef tank and I love it - I use them in my 5 freshwater tanks as well and always have accurate, steady temps with only about .1-.3 flux.
Get one!
 
lexluethar

lexluethar

Active Member
With most of the heaters i've encountered you can't go off of the dial they have on them. What you have to do is adjust them until they are set to where the water temp is consistently where you want it. For example, my heater is SET at 71 degrees, but in reality this will keep my tank at 78 - not really sure why but this is what i've had to do. Not sure if it is because i have a bad heater, or heaters are just innacurate in general and you have to adjust their dial with your therm. temp.
If i set my heater at 78 my tank would be like 90 degrees!
 
juice_1080

juice_1080

Member
I don't think the heaters have a built in "thermometer" I think they just have a set amount of heat that they are made to put out at that setting and that is just a generalization based on the tank size they are rated for. I have stealths in my tanks (250w in my 29g + 100w in my 10g) and I love them. I overkill the heater size just to be safe but I have a digital temp monitor (not the stick on things) that is accurate to 0.1 degrees and mine stays pretty close to 79.3 all day.
I would say go with stealth. Plus they are plastic so you don't have to worry about it breaking like a glass one.
 
m0nk

m0nk

Active Member
Originally Posted by LexLuethar
http:///forum/post/2500499
With most of the heaters i've encountered you can't go off of the dial they have on them. What you have to do is adjust them until they are set to where the water temp is consistently where you want it. For example, my heater is SET at 71 degrees, but in reality this will keep my tank at 78 - not really sure why but this is what i've had to do. Not sure if it is because i have a bad heater, or heaters are just innacurate in general and you have to adjust their dial with your therm. temp.
If i set my heater at 78 my tank would be like 90 degrees!

They don't really have a thermometer per se, so this is true. The only real way to truly control the temp that a heater turns on and off is to use a digital temp controller that enables the heating element based on certain temperature readings. I have one of these on my 180 and it works fairly well. The catch is that you need to be sure that if it runs in your sump that you keep the temp set higher so it will reach the DT and circulate at the right temp.
 
apos

apos

Member
I'm pretty sure at least some have thermometers. I have a 150watt one which will not turn on if I put it in water that is higher temp than what I've set the dial to.
The small tetra thermometers are crap though. I bought one rated 50W/10gal, and it couldn't even heat up a 5gal bucket anywhere near it's supposed hard-wired target temp.
 
alohami

alohami

Member
I had a stealth, and I loved it -- until it exploded in my tank. I know a lot of people have had good luck with Visi-therm, but I also have heard of a few others having the same problem as I had.
Sorry I can't offer any recommendations. I just wanted to mention what happened to me.
 
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