Heaters and Temperature Setup for a Reef Aquarium

This article aims to teach you how to heat a saltwater tank confidently and how to avoid some pretty common mistakes.

Today, we are getting the heater and temperature set upright in the new saltwater tank, and what we recommend is 78-degrees.

Choosing the Right Heater

Heaters have unique positions in our hobby as one of the most inexpensive and easy to install components to the tank's life support and the number one cause of equipment-related tank failures. That problem is why we must get this right, and here you will learn exactly what you need to know to avoid all of that and do this right.

There are a variety of heaters you can use in your new tank. There isn't going to be a considerable performance difference between most of them, so feel free to go with whichever one you want. However, if your room is cooler than the standard of around 70-degrees, you might want to consider the next size up.

Make sure the heater you choose has a failure alarm if the heater fails and gets stuck on or off, which will happen eventually. It is not the thing you notice just by looking at the tank until it's too late. An audible alarm changes the game.

In most cases, you'll be there to hear it when it happens or be there within an hour.

Placing the Heater

When placing the heater, make sure to put it somewhere. It will always stay submerged even when the pumps are off. They will burn super fast outside the water and, in some instances, can be a fire hazard when operated outside water.

So, place it as low as possible to stay submerged during a standard 10% water change. Then plug into the power center. To configure the power, set it to Fahrenheit and put it to 78-degrees, the on/off cycle 0.3 degrees; optionally, you can also calibrate it for optimal performance with high accuracy thermometer.

Calibration isn't required, but it is beneficial for almost any heater. Now that the heater is installed correctly, few information gems can change the success rate dramatically.

Every electrical component on the tank will wear out or break at some point, and we need a plan. In many cases, the heater can turn on for a short period to maintain a temperature, which means nearly half a million power-ups and half a million power down a year.

The disappointing peace is when they break, and they are just as likely to fall in the position as off. On and overheating is just a way bigger concern.

In the first couple of years, the best and cheapest strategy to avoid all that is to replace the inexpensive gear before it breaks.

Outside of that, there are 100 different ways that cat-and-mouse approach to heater failures, and as you dive deeper into reefing, you will find new ways to use technology to catch and fix it the moment it happens.

This is a statement that nearly 100% of reefers will agree on: replacing something before it breaks has a dramatically higher percentage path than most attempts at catching it the moment it breaks.

Anytime it's affordable, pick the high percentage path.

 

 

 

 

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