adriia

Very silly question, but....

You should turn your heater off when you do a water change, right?

But if your fish are very new to the tank then the change in temperature may cause problems?

What is best? turn it off and get cold fish or some sort of in between... ie turn the heater of and do it asap in under 10mis?

I'm aware this is potentially a very silly question... but if i knew it all i wouldn't be here

Thanks

Adriia

matt6765

I dont turn off the heater when I do water changes....

Shawnie

its not a silly question but you MUST turn off the heater if your water level goes below it..otherwise it will shatter! (been there did that) keep the temp coming out of the tap, the same as whats in the tank...a few mins without a heater will not hurt them

adriia

Maybe ill shift the heater sideways and lower it in enough so that it doesnt get exposed to the air and then i can leave it on

Thanks,

Adriia

matt6765

what do you mean shatter.....

adriia

I had a heating tube at work where you run solutions through the middle of it and it heats it to what ever temperature you want... great for what i needed it for at work... however, when there was no solution going through it it was constantly trying to heat the air up = impossible, so it just ended up getting so hot that it melted its self :S i take it fish tank heaters have built in safety measures to make sure that this couldn't happen? - now im being paranoid i know haha!

Adriia

Nate McFin

Shatter as is break into a million little bits in your water and gravel. Been there done that myself Shawnie!
The heater keeps heating when the water level gets low, the surface becomes very dry and hot. When the new water is added back to the tank is when it breaks.
My new heater has an auto shut off when the water level gets too low but I still have gotten into the habit of shutting things down. You can ruin a filter by running it dry as well.

Shawnie

it isnt fun to clean glass particles out of a tank!! (I actually did it twice but dont tell anyone LOL )

if any part of the glass heater gets exposed to air while plugged in , it will shatter matt...

matt6765

hmmm..... it did not do it to mine....... now I know...... it is weird because the water always goes below the glass and it does not shatter

Shawnie

you have been very lucky so far then! and if the heater temp is cooler than the air, it might have been whats saved you so far....

matt6765

no I think my heater does not heat when I change the water because I have not seen it on when I change it

Shawnie

yep maybe you have one like nates

matt6765

I have a Aquenon one....

Shawnie

yes it has an automatic shut off

matt6765

ok thats good

Lucy

That's why I use the stealth, it's encased in plastic and won't shatter if I make a mistake. It also has an auto shut off if it's out of the water.
I usually unplug mine anyway.

ccb04

+1 on both counts, Lucy.

I pretty much stick with Stealth heaters. The only other one's I'd consider would be the titanium/stainless or the Rena smart heaters.

Shawnie

im not that smart (especially after breaking 2 of them LOL) but its been a year or so since ive forgotten

SWilkins

Don't feel bad Shawnie you are not the only one that has broken more than one. I figure if I keep it up I will eventually have all of them replaced with unbreakable ones. Oh and if you are not careful with the glass thermometers you can break them too. There is not quite as much glass to them but I don't know if they still use mercury in them or not but probably not too good for the fish. Yep broke one and found out how fast I could move in getting that outta there. No casualities so I musta been fast enough.

Nate McFin

I use the stealth as well. Thanks to Lucy's tip when my last one broke.

Shawnie

well I dont forget to unplug but just wondered why my angels were being weirdo's ..I forgot to plug back in! duh! thank god its summer

and no theres no mercury in the fish tank therms.. its those cool metal balls tho which wont hurt fish

harpua2002

I agree with Shawnie and others that turning the heater off is VERY important, and a good habit to get into even if you own one with an auto shutoff feature. We have all our equipment plugged into power strips (the 120 gallon has 2 power strips, LOL), so it is easy to just flip the switch during a water change and KNOW that everything is off. We're also in the process of replacing all the outlets where aquarium equipment is plugged in with GFCI outlets. Hubby and I take safety really seriously and recommend that everyone do the same.

SWilkins

I have done that too. Tommy has a habit of checking heaters and he asked me one night why the heater in one tank had not been coming on....hummm let me check and yep I had forgotten to plug it back in. Maybe our fish are just too relaxing sometimes!

Good to know about those therms THANX.

Harpua2002 we are going to change all of the outlets in the new fishroom to GFCI along with the extras that we will be adding.

bolivianbaby

We turn off the heaters when we do water changes as well. We have both types, the glass and the stealth. Eventually, we'll be switching to only the stealth. We also unplug the light and both filters before we do water changes and plug them back in when we're done.