New here, questions about setting up my Spec 5

[Christopher Marks]

Welcome to the community @twowilldo!

 

Good thing you discovered the heater issue early on! 25W might just be too little for your climate, is the new one you ordered 50w instead? I wonder if the altitude effects the efficiency of heaters to any big extent? I don't think I've ever heard anyone mention it before, but it crossed my mind  

[twowilldo]

Thanks for the welcome!

 

No I don't think altitude affects heaters that I've ever experienced... have had others of smaller wattage in past tanks, Ebo and Fluval... never a problem but I needed a heater that would fit in the return chamber and let me add that Mini ATO in the future. Plus we are only at 6,000' here at the house and climate-wise it doesn't get as cold here as most places in the midwest in winter. I started reading reviews on the Hydor and not good... exact same problems, maybe they don't have very good quality control or something.

 

Not a big deal at this point as you say discovered it early while summertime room temps are keeping the water up.

[Lula_Mae]

2 hours ago, twowilldo said:

Thanks for the welcome!

 

No I don't think altitude affects heaters that I've ever experienced... have had others of smaller wattage in past tanks, Ebo and Fluval... never a problem but I needed a heater that would fit in the return chamber and let me add that Mini ATO in the future. Plus we are only at 6,000' here at the house and climate-wise it doesn't get as cold here as most places in the midwest in winter. I started reading reviews on the Hydor and not good... exact same problems, maybe they don't have very good quality control or something.

 

Not a big deal at this point as you say discovered it early while summertime room temps are keeping the water up.

Yeah, after my experience I think the quality control just isn't there.

[mcaswell]

On 8/11/2017 at 11:15 PM, Lula_Mae said:

If you need a smaller heater, Aqua Forest Aquariums offers a very slender one in 25w and 50w versions for a very reasonable price.  I have been very happy with mine.  It has an external controller to set the temperature with.

This thing is indeed quite small... here it is next to a Neo-Therm (the Aqua Forest is 25w, and the Neo-Therm is 50w, but I believe the 25w Neo-Therm is the same size as the 50w).

 

Though the Cobalt fits, the AF fits considerably easier, and will make it more comfortable to add the ATO sensor.

 

[Lula_Mae]

6 hours ago, mcaswell said:

This thing is indeed quite small... here it is next to a Neo-Therm (the Aqua Forest is 25w, and the Neo-Therm is 50w, but I believe the 25w Neo-Therm is the same size as the 50w).

 

Though the Cobalt fits, the AF fits considerably easier, and will make it more comfortable to add the ATO sensor.

 

Awesome, thanks for that!  It's great to have something people are familiar with to compare it to so they can see for themselves how tiny it is!