- Our today's top 10 tips on using aquarium heaters
in our reef tanks and really all those tips.
I wish somebody had told both of us
right away in the beginning.
- Yeah. Number one, tip here it is.
This is only a fine tuning solution for your heat
in your tank, the actual heater is the room.
So your wherever you have your tank set up
if it's 70 degrees, if it's 60 degrees, if it's 80 degrees
that's where your tank's going to start
and your heater and your fans do the rest.
So think about your AC,
think about your furnace,
think about windows being open,
think about the temperature of the room surrounding
your tank first and then apply a heater to it afterwards.
- Yeah. So the things that you really need
to pick up on what he just said is
when I open up my windows in the middle of the summer
and it's now 85 degrees in my house, well, you know what
so is going to be the tank.
Also, sometimes it's just cheaper to heat the room
a little bit than it is to heat the tank.
So if I'm actually running that room down at 65
I'm using a lot of electricity to heat the room,
I might use big heaters as well,
even to be able to achieve that.
So that's one of those things too is,
when you think about this fine tuning heater
and how many you need,
it's really kind of the starting point of the room.
So again, think about your furnace, think about your AC,
think about your windows and know that
the temperature of the room is actually heating the tank,
and this is just fine tuning it.
All right. number two,
probably the most important one of the day
at least the most impactful.
- Yeah. Big tip here.
Do not put this thing anywhere where it can run dry
which means that return pump that often gets run drive
your ATO goes off or some of those corner overflows
on tank where you can, you seems like you have
enough room to put a heater, but those could also run dry.
It's just a recipe for a disaster.
So make sure to put it somewhere in your sump
where it will always be submerged always
and even out thinking it a little bit.
Like what if I want to do maintenance in the sump
and suck it dry is an area
where it wouldn't be effected by that.
And it would still maintain being submerged
because one of these times are long enough timeline.
You'll forget to turn the heater off,
It'll melt through the bottom of your sump
which is a total disaster
and even worse kind of a fire hazard as well.
So if you're thinking right now, Oh man
I do have this in my return pump area
or any other place where it could run dry,
if say the auto top off turned off
and it started the water turned low,
levels start to go down or even in your tank where
if it dropped a couple of inches for any reason,
now part of it is exposed,
anywhere where it's not submerged in water,
go fix that today. - Right now.
- Don't wait any more time,
It should be solved today because it's a really big deal,
and it's one of those big tips that if you solve this
you'll never run into the issues that other people have.
- All right, tip number three,
these things break all the time,
they're not reliable as you would hope they would be
which means you have account for when one breaks
which is why a lot of us run redundant heaters
or two heaters instead of one,
and one has a backup, both as a primary.
- And so just hoping that you're around
when you happen to notice that it breaks
is probably not a good strategy in the long run,
and in fact it's a terrible one.
So a lot of people will run redundant heaters
and it may seem like if I needed a 200 watt heater
to run my tank that I should get to 200 watt heaters.
And that's the wrong answer.
Actually, that's probably the power.
Don't get two 200 water heaters in that case
because it gets stuck on just as easy as get stuck off
and now will overheat your tank way too fast.
So the flip side of that would be
if 200 was the right number,
should I get two one hundreds?
Which is essentially a 100 heater,
No, because now it's also gonna be cold
which is a also you'd have to know
that it was cold as well, which may take days
unless you're really keeping close tabs on it.
- There is an answer.
- Yes. The answer is split the difference.
So about a 75 watt heater, so if you had a 75% power,
So if 200 was the right answer for you,
you'll look in the little graph
of what is the right heater size for you
from the manufacturer,
take it down to about 75% and then get two of those,
and you kind of split the difference,
it won't overheat too fast
and it also won't we get cold too fast as well
and you've added that redundancy and that's a tip.
And number four, there's a theme building here.
These things do break all the time
and waiting for them to break, not the best answer
cause that's when bad stuff happens,
can actually prevent it as well.
- Yeah. So the tip is to replace your heaters once a year
and we're talking about the thermostats
on the heater specifically because
these things toggle off and on a hundreds and thousands
maybe you put through a million times a year,
in which case it's just got part that's going to wear out
and for the cost of 30 to 50 bucks per year
it's just worthwhile and the safety to swap them out.
- And so your whole tank,
think of the entire investment that you put on your tank
is all relying on this thing right here
turning on and off again like up to a million times a year.
Turn off every couple of minutes on and off on and off.
And there's moving parts in there
and they get stuck on just as often and stuck off.
So here's the thing.
You do not want to wait until it breaks
unless you have a whole series of alarms
and controllers on there
because you would probably never know.
Ask yourself this question. If the heater got stuck on,
how would I ever know?
And if the answer is, you don't know,
definitely you're in the camp of I should actually
just replace this every year and pre-empt it
so I don't have to be one of those people
that lost all of my pets, all my corals
and all of my time and money
over a $30 investment here.
Now, also if you do have one of these types of heaters
where the thermostats actually built into it already,
these are also $30 $40 heaters,
you end up throwing the whole thing away.
In some cases with the BRS heater
you have this German made Titanium, big heat sink,
these things don't fail as you know often.
The actual element, because this thing
doesn't have the moving part in it.
It's the thermostat
so, this is the part you wanna replace every year.
Number five tip is actually consider
where is this thing mea6suring the temperature from?
- Yeah so the tip here is to find out
where the thermostat is in your heater,
for example, this is just a heating element,
so it doesn't have a thermostat regulating itself
and regulating the temperature
whereas this one with a built-in control or thermostat
does have a thermostat but you wonder
where is it taking the temperature from,
a lot of times, it's in the top of the cap of the heater
and that's where it regulates the temperature meaning
should probably be submerged.
- Yeah, that is the big piece here.
If you didn't know this, well maybe when I installed it
I'd actually installed it in a manner where
the top piece is actually exposed to water.
Now that violates the, what is it?
Number two no-no of don't ever let the thing get submerged.
But at the same time, if you know where it is
you can get a better idea
of maintaining the temperature in it.
I'll also know, once you know where it is too
is you can know some of the faults of some types of heaters.
So you know, these are cheap.
These are inexpensive and makes them pretty attractive.
But if you know that it's in here
you also know that when this heating element heats up
it actually heats up the thermostat in here
so, it ends up having extra cycles on and off
when the actual thermostats incorporated
into the heating element itself,
but there are other alternatives.
Some of those other alternatives here
are having the thermostat separate.
So you'll see the thermostat separate
and now the probe is separate as well
and I can go put this anywhere I want.
And now it's very obvious where I would put this probe
but there are also heaters like this one
that have that probe that comes off as well.
So when you're looking at the pictures of the heaters
and you're trying to decide which one
if you can't visibly see
where the actual thermostat is on these,
it's probably incorporated in the top
and you should make sure that
that thing is submerged at all times.
And number six there's a flip side of that.
- Yeah. So like he said we were just talking
about the separate Temp Probes.
So the tip here is to take extra special care
and consideration when placing your separate Temp Probes,
some of these things have like a six foot cord on them,
some of them have like a three or four inch cord on them.
So just be cautious or cognizant
of where you're putting this thing.
Like, if my heater's right here
and the water is flowing across it,
if I put my temperature probe
or that probe on the other side
it's going to register that freshly
heated water off my heater
and might not actually
heat my tank as much as I wanted it to.
So we usually put them upstream of that
or somewhere remotely away from the heating element.
- There's also a major risk element to this as well.
Yeah. So if you put this thing
make sure wherever you put it,
really consider your reliance on these suction cups as well
because what happens now is this thing
is actually measuring the temperature of your tank
and telling the heater to turn on and off.
What happens if this accidentally gets bumped
or pulled out of the tank or worse yet
you put it in a place that isn't submerged
like in your return pump area or anywhere else like that.
Now it's reading the temperature of your room, 70 degrees.
Desperately trying to get the tank
up to 78 in most cases.
So if that's the case,
it's just going to keep heating and heating.
So when you do have an external thermometer or thermostat,
make sure that it's a place that will always be submerged
even if like you're talking on chords or anything else
that no matter what, never on a long enough timeline,
never ever will this ever get submerged,
maybe I put in a magnet holder, I did something to make sure
that that will never happen because it is definitely
a risk when these things are separate.
And number seven there's a lot of debate
as to the perfect temperature for your tank
and there is a tip here.
- Yeah. This is a quick tip.
Skip the debate set it to 78 degrees.
We have all of our takes at 78 degrees,
a mass majority of reefers have it set to 78 degrees
where we find a lot of the best results
suggests that your heater is 78.
- There's a nerdy end to this so you could go in
and try to figure out the perfect temp
from where this coral came from,
that's just the regional area,
but also some of these things are collected
at 100 feet, some of them are collected at ten feet,
they have different temperatures.
But the answer to that question is,
we see consistent results at 78,
and I personally have never found a reason
to run any other temperature.
Number eight. This hits that part we talked about earlier
which is, how would you even know
if the heater stopped working?
- Yeah. So the tip here is to get a thermometer
cause I can walk by this tank
and never know what temperature is just by visually,
and a lot of times it does take some time
whether it's overheating or are cooling down
it takes a while
for you to see visual signs of that in the tank.
So rather than walking by and sticking my finger in
and wondering what the temperature is
there's three ways that you should monitor
the temperature of your tank.
First one is come by with a little thermometer
and test it and find out what it is,
but there's a better and best option.
- Yeah. So a better option is actually
even though they're cheap
and they're not necessarily the most accurate
those all stickers, that you can put on the glass.
- Yeah, the rainbow looking ones.
- Yeah they just tell you
the temperature that cost five bucks.
I can walk by at a glance
and know that like things are generally okay,
without that, the visual indication would be,
things are dying.
I'd rather pre-empt at things that are dying
because that's the state
at which the temperature usually would tell you
and now you could dip your finger in there every day
but the flip side of that is keeping your hands
out of the tank generally is a good idea
for you and the fish and the coral as well.
So probably not the best way,
but there is a best way which is a visual or audible
or a visual or audible alarm means screaming at you,
telling you ppp save me.
- Yeah, it's a lot of this comes with
like an aquarium controller
or you can even get separate temperature sensors
off the side that will, some will send you emails, texts.
Some we'll just have a loud alarm going off
but in it's way better than you just walking by
looking at the tank
and guessing what the temperature might be.
- Some of the better extra external thermostats
will also have an audible alarm.
But yeah, I mean screaming at you saying, save the tank,
I can hear it from the other room.
I didn't have to walk by and see it.
The only part of that (indistinct) is,
those aquarium controllers,
which will not only set off an honorable alarm many cases,
but will actually start sending you those text messages.
So you can get, they're not the cheapest thing,
but as you spend more and more money on your tank,
more time and investment into it,
getting a text message and email
or push notification through apps,
like the one on Apex fusion
telling you,
"Hey your temperature's way off, go do something about it".
And in this case, if it's also hooked up to something
like an apex, you can actually just turn the heater off
for you and save the day.
Number nine, one of the more popular heaters,
but there is a factor to consider.
- Yeah. So the tip here is when you're looking at
your heater, also take into account the length of it.
So a 300 watt in the Eheim jager series
is far greater bigger than a 300 watt
in like the bulk reef supply Titanium one,
so you have to account for some of these
and I've got a lot of phone calls
when I was on customer service, even did it myself,
where I bought a big long heater,
had no idea of how big it would be, get it to my sump
and I just can't fit it in any of my chambers.
It doesn't fit.
And then it goes back to that
tip number two is okay, maybe I can fit it diagonally
but most of it, even the thermostat is now exposed there.
- You'd beat me to the punch in the deck.
A lot of people will do that because I bought this heater.
It's now wet.
Like it's hard to return what used items.
And I stuck it in the side here.
Well, yeah, if it's in there now
but what happens when it's not submerged diagonally?
What happens when the ATO stops working?
Well, you know, you really got to think
about those things because of rule number two
which is like don't burn down your house or melt yourself.
So think about the length of these things.
most of them will tell you exactly how long
they're in the product descriptions.
So, this coral has 100 Watt heaters, tiny, right?
This is actually only 150 watt heater,
it is way, way, way bigger
and probably the one that you got the most calls
about is the glass Eheim jager 300 watt
which is super, super long, right?
Does not fit in most sumps.
So think about the size, make sure you measure it out
and then you'll get the right tool
for the right job the first time.
And number ten, probably the most disappointing thing
you'll come to realize, but it's true.
- Yeah. The tip here is to calibrate your heater
because most of them, even the ones that we've tested come
out of the box and they are wrong,
meaning that if I set it to 78 degrees
I should be able to drop it in my tank,
walk away thinking that my tank is gonna be 78 degrees.
But actually it might be upwards of like five degrees as off
for five degrees lower, five degrees higher.
So calibrate your heater
not all heaters have a calibration ability on them,
some of them do the best ones will do
but you can adjust for it too
if you don't have a ability to calibrate
you can use some thermometers and find out if yours is off
and then adjust with the different temperature settings.
- I've actually seen him off as much as six degrees.
That means if you set it to 78, it might actually be 72
and it might actually be 84 and that much.
And so almost all of them
off two to three degrees, it's very disappointing.
You would think that they'd be better than that.
I will tell you, I don't know why,
but all of our tanks, again, these reef tanks
are really expensive
they are all dependent on this like $30 piece of equipment.
And I think that's kind of a thing that a leftover
from like a freshwater world
where there's some of the tanks are just less expensive.
So putting a really nice heater on your tank,
probably didn't make a lot of sense in that case
but here like a little different world.
So you do definitely wanna know the temperature.
It is easy as just using a thermometer
put it into the tank, getting a reading,
better yet use two of them and average it,
we sell some really nice ones
like the Hanna and there's a long stem one,
they are NIST validated and you can measure against that.
Some of them you can actually program in here in calibrated
and will now read correctly.
Some of them, you turn that little dial on it.
And some of them, if I know it's at four degrees
I just have to account for it.
So know that going into it.
It's always best to actually calibrate them and confirm
that they're working correctly.
All right. So there's one tip
that's more important than all the others, let it be.
- For me the tip is, don't go exploring in the forums
or the groups and tryna pinpoint
the right temperature for your tank.
Set it to 78 degrees.
You'll be just as good as us.
- Yeah for me, it actually is one
that we didn't like outright say
but kind of had let like a insight into,
which is, these things fail all the time.
Number one piece of equipment that fails
it's very, very inexpensive.
They cost 30 bucks,
they turn on and off a million times a year.
The moment that you just accept that and account for it
then your trajectory for your tank goes way up.
Meaning the people that change these things out over a year
have a way longer success trajectory
than the people that wait for them to break
and just hope that they're around for them.
So, you know, think about that
and you can actually really have
a much more successful journey in reefing.
If you want to see any of these heaters,
you can find them over
@bulkreefsupply.com right here
but you can also go see some Randy's testing
on these heaters, to see that calibration
and how far some wore off
and actually how close some of them were as well,
and you can see that right here.