125g with 2 Oscar's and a couple of cichlids. Normally aggression is low to average. But for the past few days it has been super high I did a water change a week ago and everything was fine but today I noticed I lost a cichlid when I put my hand in with the net to remove the dead fish I noticed the water was very very warm I check the temperature was 94 degrees at the moment I only have 1 500 watt heater in there. Now this heater is the kind where the temperature control is outside the tank and you actually submerge the heater and a probe and I noticed the probe was actually hanging out of the tank so my question is would the probe being out of the water caused the temperature spike or is my heater bad?
tank water to 94 degrees help!
- Thread starter Mathius page
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Yes. The probe being outside can cause the temp to rise. The probe senses the current temp and heats or turns off according to that reading. Put the probe back in and test it.
I would think about getting 2 smaller heaters instead, 500w heater on a 125 is more then capable of cooking your fish. 2 x 150 w will keep the temp and if one sticks on wont kill your stock off
2 heaters always the way to go for redundancy in case one goes down, with the probe back in the water your heater should be working fine, same can be said for filters . always best to have at least 2 filters on a tank even one can do the job for the same reason.
Yes I absolutely agree on the 2 heaters I have them on just had to pull one out on an emergency basis 2 weeks ago for my hospital tank Cuz I had one cichlid who was holding eggs and I wanted her out... I'm going to the store this weekend to replace it after this little scare
The probe sounds like it's a thermostat. So, in that case, let's say that you keep your room temperature at 74 while you set your target tank temperature at 78: your probe read the temperature of the room as 74, decided it was too low (since it assumes it's in the tank and that the tank water should be 78), and initiated the heater to activate.
Since the room stayed at 74, the probe kept heating.
Sorry you lost a fish over that, but at least it was only 1.
Clip the probe so it stays inside the water. Or better yet, get 2 smaller heaters so if one malfunctions at on or at off, the fish don't cook or chill. Two 250 watt heaters use essentially the exact same amount of electricity as one 500 watt heater (technically they use a tiny % more from leakage), so except for the aesthetics of seeing 1 extra heater, it's not a big issue.
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