Heater acting out again - thinking about going unheated

[SwampFins]

So I got home yesterday and I noticed my heater is acting up again and heating above the target temperature I had set. Now this is probably the 3rd heater I've bought in the last year and I'm starting to get a little paranoid about them lately.

The only thing I have not tried this far is an inkbird type controller, which I guess would be the next logical step but then it would be one more gadget in line and I like to run things pretty simple. -still open to the idea tho-

Now, what I was wondering is whether or not I could get away with not heating the tank all and just keeping a regular heater at hand for any emergencies.

The room i have the tank in sits between 75 - 80 degrees all year round with no major fluctuations. Perhaps 2 degrees swing in a day tops if anything.

Do you guys see any potential problems with this?

I know the bichirs would be ok, I am more curious about the oscar and red devil since they are from slightly warmer waters.

 

[RD.]

At 75-80 F ambient room temps, your fish will all be fine sans heaters.

 

[Rocksor]

I've kept oscars with no issue in temps as low as 72F for a few months. 20 or so years ago, there wasn't much information on temperature range for oscars on the internet, and the forums, newsgroups, and LFS in my area said that tropical temperatures from 70F and above were fine.

 

[SwampFins]

Awesome I appreciate the feedback!

I figured it be more natural if anything given it's only a slight variation, but wanted to make sure before trying.

I'll give this a shot!

Thank you!

 

[HybridFinatic]

Only heater I use is the Eheim jager and I have never had any problems. I trust this heater so much I don’t use heater controllers on all my tanks. These heaters are built to last over a decade.

 

[SwampFins]

Only heater I use is the Eheim jager and I have never had any problems. I trust this heater so much I don’t use heater controllers on all my tanks. These heaters are built to last over a decade.

I dont know if maybe I've been unlucky but I had two eheim jagers fail and over heat, then I bought an Aqueon- granted only because it was cheap at the time and I was bitter about the eheim Haha- that one did not overheat but it would fluctuate a lot during the day for some reason.

Then I decided to "splurge" on a nice heater and got the fluval e series- and that one has been the worst. Always giving lo flow warnings, being all over the place. I ended up removing the guard and that helped tremendously for several months, until now.

It's funny because when I got started in the hobby I had really cheap "but smaller" no name heaters and they never failed me.

 

[Rocksor]

I had a Eheim 300 watt heater fail to turn on after 2 years, and another one stay stuck on after 6 years. The other 3 are fine and have been in use since 2012/2014.

 

[RD.]

Only heater I use is the Eheim jager and I have never had any problems. I trust this heater so much I don’t use heater controllers on all my tanks. These heaters are built to last over a decade.

Jager's dropped in quality when Eheim purchased them years ago and they began sourcing lower cost parts. Like the majority of heaters on the market, overall they are unreliable pieces of garbage, so if yours hasn't failed consider yourself lucky. One of the largest online vendors of aquatic dry goods in Canada told me a few yrs back that Eheim Jager is their most unreliable heater that he has ever carried, and the most frequently returned heater due to failure. He still sells them, but has the following at the top of the page.

Jager


Despite their former reputation for a quality product Jager heaters are now the most unreliable heater we offer. Jager heaters are prone to highly irregular temperature fluctuations.

 

[RD.]

BTW - all of these heaters can & will fail. Most are made from relatively cheap parts, many sourced from the lowest bidder. (China) I don't know what each company considers an acceptable failure rate, but all one can do is flip a coin, hope that you're lucky, or add some redundancy to your system via controller units. But even controllers are not 100% foolproof, not even close. Lots of various makes & models are known to have issues. Some aren't even designed for wet applications (underwater) but are designed for HVAC systems. Caveat emptor

 

[duanes]

When I lived in Wisconsin I unplugged heaters May thru Sept, (except for haitiensus, and Alcolapia tanks) and only used heaters in winter because I allowed my house to get down to 60'F, for those fish that needed cool down.
Whenever my heaters failed (and they all did at one point or another, 98% of the time, they failed in the "On" position, attempting to cook the fish.
i agree with RD, for most species at your ambient room temps, heaters are not worth messing with.