Best Aquarium Heater?

I'm planning on moving my fermentation to a bucket inside a rubbermaid container full of water in my basement. It stays in the upper 50s down there. What size/wattage heater do I need to keep it at ale temp? Any preferred models? Thanks in advance!

I recommend one of the 'shatterproof' style, fully submersible heaters. main reason is they have a good shutoff if they get too hot. traditional submersible heaters are made of glass, and if its on and gets pulled out of the water, it'll heat up INSANELY FAST and the second it gets wet, the glass explodes.

i would check out Big Al's fish store or Drs Foster Smith...both are online and have really good pricing. Ebo-jager and Visitherm are good brands.

for an aquarium you usually aim for 3 watts per gallon of tank capacity.

What size of container are you planning on using for fermentation? I would recommend Rena heaters, they are easily adjusted to a specific temperature rather than just a + or - for heat. Petsmart carried them when I worked there, and by the time you pay for shipping they are about the same price. If your looking online the cheapest is probably petsolutions.com

i'd also suggest a small pump in your reservoir to keep the temp steady throughout

I use Marineland Stealth aquarium heaters. They are shatterproof (i.e. all plastic) and have pretty accurate temp settings in my experience. I used to have a cheaper version, but the thermostat failed (which seems to be pretty common with the cheap heaters). I believe I'm using the 75W version in a medium size plastic tote (maybe 5 gallons of water?) in a basement that stays around 50F in the winter. I also use a tiny ($5) submersible water pump from Harbor Freight to keep temps even. This setup also works great for bottle conditioning.

Two other recommendations: use a splash of bleach in the water bath and put something between the plastic tote and the basement floor for insulation (I use a few layers of cardboard). It's surprising how much heat a cold concrete floor will absorb.

twst1up said:

i'd also suggest a small pump in your reservoir to keep the temp steady throughout

Click to expand...

Do you think that is necessary?

I would imagine the reservoir water would equalize well before it had any major affect on the liquid inside the fermenter.

I like the stealth heaters as well. Used em in my tanks when I had a bunch running and have used them for keeping temps high enough for fermentation.

malkore said:

i would check out Big Al's fish store or Drs Foster Smith...both are online and have really good pricing. Ebo-jager and Visitherm are good brands.

Click to expand...

I'm gonna disagree that Ebo-Jager is a good heater. They used to be great (the green ones), but since being bought by Eheim quality has gone down significantly.


Heater thermostats WILL fail. All of them eventually. You're better off spending the extra bucks and having a Ranco or something to control it.

how can anything by Eheim be poor quality? they were the Cadillac of pumps when I was more into the aquarium hobby.

malkore said:

how can anything by Eheim be poor quality? they were the Cadillac of pumps when I was more into the aquarium hobby.

Click to expand...

Same thing that happened to Cadillac, maybe?

I have had a Rena heater on a 125 gallon for the last 7 years, love em. I used to work at an aquarium professionally and alot of our quarantine tanks used rena.

Ehiem has gone down in popularity in the last 3-5 years because you can now get the same quality, just cheaper. Besides, they were well known for canister filters and who uses a canister filter anymore, really?

marc06 said:

Besides, they were well known for canister filters and who uses a canister filter anymore, really?

Click to expand...

Really? If not a canister what do you use?
You can't beat wet/dry for biofiltration.
But as a water polisher, they bite.
I run both on my 135g and have 2 HOBs and a canister on my 55g.
Other than a canister there are few things better at polishing.
I need to build a fluidized bed filter for te 135g.
The only thing better would be a diatomacious earth filter, which is essentually a canister.

greeneyed said:

Really? If not a canister what do you use?
You can't beat wet/dry for biofiltration.
But as a water polisher, they bite.
I run both on my 135g and have 2 HOBs and a canister on my 55g.
Other than a canister there are few things better at polishing.
I need to build a fluidized bed filter for te 135g.
The only thing better would be a diatomacious earth filter, which is essentually a canister.

Click to expand...

Canisters are so old school. (unless you're running planted freshwater). Skimmers.


Eheim likes to buy out its competition, and then cut tons of corners. I think Ebo-Jager will be gone within the next couple of years. The actual Eheim branded stuff is usually pretty good, and their pumps are still very nice, although grossly overpriced.

I have a 100w in my 26 gallon tank and it keeps it at 75-77 degrees regularly. the thing is that is for 26 gallons of water which is being heated 8-10 degrees above ambient so if you have less water I'd go with something smaller. I would also calculate the batch size into your total volume so if you have a 40 qt container you'd want to calculate for the whole 10 g even though your putting in you 5 gal batch. insulate it? that might help you go with a smaller heater. 75w (depending on your total volume) might be the answer considering you'd want to raise the temp about 15 degrees and plus one on the underwater pump.

Synovia said:

Canisters are so old school. (unless you're running planted freshwater). Skimmers.


Eheim likes to buy out its competition, and then cut tons of corners. I think Ebo-Jager will be gone within the next couple of years. The actual Eheim branded stuff is usually pretty good, and their pumps are still very nice, although grossly overpriced.

Click to expand...

The only thing a skimmer is good for is removing proteins on the surface.
They do not remove suspended particles in the water column.

Anyways, sorry OP for the jack.

As stated above, I would get one of the unbreakable type, or even a Hydrokable. It is essentially a length of heating cable with an external thermostat.

greeneyed said:

The only thing a skimmer is good for is removing proteins on the surface.
They do not remove suspended particles in the water column.

Click to expand...

Sure they do. The good ones anyways. Just gotta skimm a little on the wet side. The bubbles in the skimmer act as both mechanical and chemical filtration. I find whole mysis shrimp/etc in the skimmer cup. Particulates aren't a problem. None of my reef tanks have ever had anything but skimmers.

As stated above, I would get one of the unbreakable type, or even a Hydrokable. It is essentially a length of heating cable with an external thermostat.

Click to expand...

External Thermostat = the win. I still don't trust any of the ones that come with heaters though. Rancos are great.

I would just keep it simple. I would get 2 -3 of the Stealth heaters. The reason for mutiple units is if one should fail in the on position you will have much more time to catch it before your ferment temp gets too high. I would also recomend a small powerhead for water movement. 1, you don't want the water to become stagnet and 2, you will have more even and consistant temp with moving water. With a heater on one side, it will heat just that area leaving the other side to freeze. Sure there will be some convection going on, but that is a upward movement. Not stirring about.

Aside from mutiple heaters, I would do a Ranco.

On another note, I love my little reef tank. Reef tanks and beer. You can get drunk and watch time fly by.

I have an Ebo heater and two Eheim 1262's on my 58g reef.

I'm gonna agree with the ranco/love controller. If you figure a ranco is $50-60 and one bad batch of beer is $$ wasted, it's not that much money for a controller. Plus, you'll be able to use it in the future for a lagerater..

B

tunze pumps are really the way to go now, at least for the small ones. and a small 50-100W titanium heater is what i would use. its all i ever used on my salt water tanks.

joedelt said:

tunze pumps are really the way to go now, at least for the small ones. and a small 50-100W titanium heater is what i would use. its all i ever used on my salt water tanks.

Click to expand...

Maybe kinda small. Your salt tank has mucho heat from lights as well. Thats why most salt tanks have chillers.

joedelt said:

tunze pumps are really the way to go now, at least for the small ones. and a small 50-100W titanium heater is what i would use. its all i ever used on my salt water tanks.

Click to expand...

I'm kinda partial to Vortechs. I have a big one on my 58 and I'm getting a little one on my 34g.

Do you use a controller with your titanium heaters? Friends have had them burn out and cook their reefs. I like that the heaters are unbreakable, but I don't need to take the chance.

B

I was thinking of this thread not too long ago and I see it has been brought back to the front.

I was thinking of this heater by Hydor. I am using it in my Edge tank now and I think it is great. Unbreakable, can be run dry, ect...
http://reviews.petco.com/3554/102429/reviews.htm

bad coffee said:

I'm kinda partial to Vortechs. I have a big one on my 58 and I'm getting a little one on my 34g.

Do you use a controller with your titanium heaters? Friends have had them burn out and cook their reefs. I like that the heaters are unbreakable, but I don't need to take the chance.

B

Click to expand...

yes i used a neptune controler. with a pair of the hydor titanium. I used them on my 60 cube. I used 2 for redundancy.

I've used a ViaAqua Stainless Steel heater for years (freshwater) and never have to look at it. The separate thermo probe and ss made a big difference compared to the glass based ones I used to use.

Right now Petco.com has a ton of aquarium heaters 40% off and free shipping until March 10th... I took advantage of this to get a few more for my fermentation closet