How will you heat your tanks this winter?

[bookpage]

This comes from another forum:

"This is my first winter in the hobby and I wanted to get an idea of where everyone stands on their heat situation. Some of yall use heaters, other heat up the room, Do any of yall have other techniques to keep your tank water warm? What temperature on the thermostat is needed to keep loaches at a decent temperature?"

[clownloachfan]

i live in pennsylvania, our winters here can be not so good for tropical fish. I am not sure how mild your winters are down there in texas. The house is usually kept at about 70 which is pretty nice for hillstream loaches since they come from cool mountain streams. Other loaches such as clowns, yoyos, kubotais, etc. need warmer temps from the mid 70's to lower 80's. I always keep my tanks at about 78 year round with submersible heaters. The tanks can get up to the low 80's for me in some of the summer months occasionly, due to the ac not being on in the house. The fish dont mind this. I like the Ehiem Ebo-Jager brand. They are reliable and stay constant in their temperatures( at least for me), german made also.

[starsplitter7]

Even in Florida our house gets very cold in the winter, because we don't heat the house. I keep my tanks at about 78-82 with heaters. I check them daily by touching the tank as I walk by with the back of my hand. I don't like using heaters. I am always afraid of cooking my fish. I remove the heaters from April to November.

[glenna]

such horror stories about cooked fish. I fear also the stuff I have read about "heaters gone bad". I am here in North Carolina and just put the heaters back in my tanks. Makes me nervous, but the nights are already starting to cool. I keep the house around 74F so they would likely be okay, but I want to keep them at optimal temps (clowns, angelicus, queen, yoyo, striata, kuhli, weather). I know there are a number of source habitats, but think (hope) around 78F will keep them all pretty happy. They seem very healthy.

[Hokum]

If you're worried about your heater over heating the tank use a heater controller. It works like a heater in that it has a tempreture sensor in the tank and your heaters plug into it. If a heater goes wrong the controller turns off the heating to the tank.

As i have hillstreams etc I have a small 50W heater which just keeps the temp stable and should take a long time to over heat the tank.

[astex]

Having watched my main tank reach 96 degrees by a malfunctioning heater, I am currently running the two smaller heaters instead of one appropriate size heater.

However, does anyone know if the titanium heaters have less of a chance of malfunctioning? Most have external controllers, so I was just wondering if they might be "safer." I have some smaller tanks where I have to use one heater.