JoeSmo

I would just like to give everyone my advice on TopFin heaters.

While they are cheaper compared to the other heaters, you get what you pay for, and they are not at all reliable. Mine worked fine holding a steady 78-79*F until about a week ago. My water dropped to about 75*F, and the heater was on high! I had a 100 watt heater for my 20 gallon, and needless to say it sucked.

I am sorry if anyone here likes the TopFin heaters, I just wanted to warn the newbies to the hobby or people looking for a good, cheap heater. The TopFin heaters are unreliable and you will end up paying more money buying more heaters to replace them than you will on say, a Stealth heater.

Just my word of warning.

Hello Jo, I moved your thread to the "reviews/aquarium heaters" section of the forum. I think it will help members more by being there.
Thanks, Ken

Amanda

I love these heaters personally. I use them in my 10 gal. & 20 gal. I personally have been having problems with the heaters that you can set yourself with overheating.

Electricat

Not just cheap stuff is problematic.....I had a Stealth in my tank, because they are highly recommended, and I love my other Marineland products. A month ago, it went haywire and overheated...when I found it, it was 108* in the tank, and everything but the pleco was dead.

ccb04

I have yet to hear of a piece of fish keeping equipment that someone didn't have a problem with. If it's man/machine made ... no matter how expensive or reputable, it can of course be prone to malfunctions or breakage.

Electricat's problem with the Stealth is a good example. The only other problem I've heard of with a Stealth was Dino in his fish house. While seemingly rare ... it can and does happen, even with the best of products.

Many folks use TopFin heaters without a problem. Other's, such as yourself, experience a problem. I will say though ... while a temp drop of 3-4 degrees isn't desirable ... it's better than a heater going nuclear and frying your tank.

I prefer Stealth's primarily ... but as mentioned ... even they aren't completely immune from problems.

pinkfloydpuffer

I've used several TopFin's for over a year with no problems at all.... I had a Stealth that almost fried my puffers, which I'd only had for several months...

CHoffman

I have used topfin's in allot of my tanks with nooo problems at all. But my stealth heater on the other hand went crazy over heated my tank and killed Mork and Mindy my dwarf puffers. Seriously though is anyone seeing a theme here??.
Also it's way better that your heater under heated instead of overheated

pinkfloydpuffer

Yeah, it makes me wonder...

+1
The worst that can happen if it underheats is the fish are at room temperature... the worst if it overheats.... crispy fritters

JoeSmo

Haha sorry, didn't mean to start all of this. I just didn't want people to go spend money on them based on my experience. I guess mine was just faulty then. Or mabye the 100 watt isn't strong enough for the 20 gallon?

ccb04

I've noticed the theme. This is definitely the most complaints I've ever seen regarding Stealths.

The Marineland heaters I usually see occassional complaints about are the Visi-Therm Deluxe models. Several times I've read of them going 'nuclear'. IIRC, CoBettaCouple (Dave & Stacey) had the problem with one.

Prior to this thread ... the only time I can remember reading about a Stealth going 'nuclear' was in a post from Dino.

Sorry you guys had such problems and lost your boys & girls.

Kitsune

Wish I had seen this earlier. I had bought a topfin heater. (Now have a visitherm stealth) The paint came off. That is sooo wrong.