heating a pico?

[Bodhi-Licious]

does anyone have heaters in there picos? if so what wattage? or do the lights give off enough heat?

[brent-konieczny]

I have a cool little powerhead that generates enough heat to keep my 1gal at 78F. How small of a tank are you talking?

[supersecretshinto]

Yeah, it would probably be best to see how much heat your equipment will put in the water first, but I have seen some small (under 10watt) flat, square ones for putting under the gravel or behind the rockwork....should be easy to hide in the display. A regular glass sub heater could end up being an eyesore or a waste of space in the display...depending on how small a tank you're talking. Do you have a sump/fuge to put it in?

[Ricky@3rdshift]

I used the small heat pad ones and m tank hit 89 degrees in a 24 hour period. It is a 1 gallon tank from petco. I went and gt a 25 watt submersible adjustable heater and use it set at about 72 degrees and it keeps mt tank about 78 or so with lights on and 75 to 76 with lights off through the winter months. I have yet to use it in summer months so I dunno about that yet.

[yoshiod9]

i had a redsea pico for awhile...i could never find a freaking small enough heater so i went without. tank temp, in a stable room temp of 78*, stayed around 78*. my biggest issue was remembering to top off...which is the reason the pico no longer exists.

[riotj]

I don't use a heater in my red sea pico and the corals don't seem to mind the temp flux of from about 72-80 in a 24 hour period. I am concerned about the summer though and keeping the temp down. We'll see how that goes.

[Bodhi-Licious]

yeah I was thinkin of a 1 gal pico so Im not sure if I will need a heater. I might set up a 5 gal fuge though and then i woul deffinatley put a heater in it

[Lofty]

I managed to squeeze a 25 watt into my 2.5 gal. We kinda need it over here in england because it gets too cold at night time.

 

Good reason to top up as well, if the water level in the sump drops by about an inch, then the heater wont be submerged below the water line, so could probably crack!

[non-photosynt]

I managed to squeeze 50W submersible into less than 1 gal, not because a lot of choices. Temperature was stabile already for a few days. Will see.

[Arklier]

The lights on my 3 gallon JBJ keep the tank around 78 degrees, but I can't keep them running 24-7. I bought a 50w 5 1/2" titanium heater from Doctors Foster & Smith. It was the smallest submersible one they had that had a thermostat on it. The nice thing is the dial for the thermostat is on the cord instead of built into the heater itself, so I can adjust it without having to take the heater out of the tank. It will arrive on Friday, so I'll try and take some pictures once it's in the tank.

[Izzue]

Flick your bic???

Naaa...just joking... heat pad

 

Izzue

[fishbabies]

Here is a picture of the Azoo 50w Titanium Heater. I really like it for my 1.75 gallon. The heater is only slightly larger than a sharpie marker.

 

[brandon429]

hydor also makes a remote thermostat unit for about 70 bones that will make that thing temp. regulated, just like a normal heater. When your temp drops below the setpoint, the external pad heater will click on and off as needed. Very cool for pico reefs, we've waited a long time for that. There is a remote probe wire you stick down in the water, that transmits the temp via thermoswitches into the external thermostat. Search hydor products or marinedepot.com

 

Brandon M.

[Arklier]

Why would you drop $10 on the Hydor and $70 on a thermostat when you can buy the Azoo heater (which is the one I was talking about from Drs. Foster & Smith) with a thermostat built in for $18?

[jimmy595]

Ive heard of the azoo titanium rusting through. It could kill you, just a thought

[fishbabies]

Titanium doesn't rust, tarnish or corrode. The connection between the titanium rod and electrical wires could cause problems if not sealed well. Mine hasn't had any problems in 2 months of use. You might be thinking of the ViaAqua stainless steel heaters. I had one of those and after a week or so gobs of rust that looked like molten orange wax started to grow around the rubber seal and top of the heating bar. ...so mad!

[Arklier]

That is correct. A metal must be ferrous (contain iron) to rust, and titanium does not. It is an atomic element, #22 on the perodic table. That being said, it can be combined with iron to form an alloy and then it would rust, but one would hope that would not be the case for an object meant to be inserted in water.

[brandon429]

Yeah that azoo looks pretty small, if it's smaller than the current industry standard of 6" on these mini heaters, then it's the way to go. If it's the same size as the Tronics brand heaters (pretty small, but still 6") then one might justify the higher cost of the hydor setup solely on the ability to heat externally, with no internal space consumption. I will have to do this when I build my next atto reef, it's too small for any internal heater. Kudos to this azoo line, however, I think they'll be the first ones to build us a 3" model!

[The Keeper]

I use a 25Watt Finnex Heater in my 1.6 Gallon. It works awesome!! It's fitted in the back of the AC20 HOB Filter and keeps the temp at 79.5-80.2 Not even a degree of fluxuation!!! Bomb ass little heater..