best heater ?

anthonyd wrote:

Hi ladz
I had to get a new heater yesterday after yet another one let me down.
I have a few different brands of heaters in my tanks but none of them will heat and keep the temperature i set them.

Is there a reliable heater who keep the water at the temperature you set the dial at?

I m tired to spend money on heaters who cant do the job they are supposed to and i need a few more to set up a few more shrimp tanks

Thanks
Anthony

Although a little dearer than many of the more regularly-available brands I have always had good results from the Eheim/Jaeger brand.
I'm told some of the new-fangled electronically-controlled ones are good, but have never tried one - so cannot comment. Doubtless people here have and can tell you their findings.

John

I think this is an inherent problem with what we used to call 'heater-stats'.

Back in 'my day' (here he goes again, I hear you saying) heaters and thermostats were completely different entities and could be set independently of one another. Temperature was definitely more constant then, although not always as the bi-metal strip construction was nowhere near as accurate as modern electronically-operated thermostats. I remember well the resistance which greeted the first combined units - people were convinced that by the heating element being directly under the thermostat yet within the same tube there could never be the consistency of temperature which could be got and maintained with the separate units. Some people (myself included) I recall, actually went to the extreme and locked down the thermostatic unit in the combined ones and still used them as just plain heaters - controlled by their original thermostats (sometimes internal, but latterly mostly external 'hang-on' ones).
With the passage of time most of us finally 'came around' to accepting the 'modern' combined units - helped, no doubt, by the advent of much-improved methods of creating water-flow within our tanks - meaning that the heat could circulate far better than with our air driven filters and aerators. However, it seems pretty evident to me that by having the heating element under - or even beside (if you set it horizontally) - will always have a degree of inconsistency. Hopefully this can explain the variation in temperatures achieved but a variation which we all nowadays take pretty well for granted.

Tonight's history lesson over.

John