Is a 50 watt heater enough for a 10g?

I have a 10 gallon tank I'm setting up and I need to temp to be around 75-80 and I'm wondering if a 50 watt heater will be sufficient for my 10 gallon? My house temperature is 68-70 degrees.

Thank you!!

 

I would suggest a Fluval M50..I got one on my one 10 gallon, these are flawless… Check out the spec’s, Fluval heaters always worked well for me, this one is nice, dial it in and forget it, my 10 gallon is set at 76 deg., heater has been in for a year. Thermometer always reads around 76 deg. with floating thermometer. Look at the spec’s. Should be fine for a 10 gallon.Just my opinion..

 

The "rule of thumb" for most tank heaters is 5 watts per gallon. That works well as long as you keep the tank in a room of normal temperature, let's say it seldom goes below 66 degrees F. It also assumes that you are heating the tank to a normal aquarium temperature of 76-78 degrees F.

The rule fails if you keep the tank in a room that falls significantly below 66 F. I have a tank in my basement. In the winter, the temperature typically falls to 60 F and I have seen it even lower when outside temperatures fall below 0 F. I live in Northern Illinois, so we see several days each year that drop below 0 F. Thus, for that tank, I provide 10 watts per gallon. I do that by using two 5 watt per gallon heaters so that the second heater only comes on during the winter.

 

Ok, I live in Florida so in the winter the lowest it gets is 50 degrees, which we will open our windows so that's pretty much the only time it gets colder than 66. But winters a long time away, I have a extra 25 watt heater I can use for when it gets too cold.

I checked out the fluval heater and it looks like a great heater but my only concern is the length of it and that it will be to tall for my tank. People said it can go horizontal but is the cord long enough? I can always get a little extension cord though.

 

You will probably be good year-round with a 50 watt. I stay away from heaters that can't go horizantal becaise i tend to keep my heaters down near the bottom so i don't have to forget either unplugging or plugging them back in for a water change.

 

Water flow and lid matter greatly also. Using glass lids on my blackwater made a difference. And using a spray bar across the full length of the tank did the same. Without the spray bar I'd have to use a strong current to get similar temperature results.

 

I use a 50W heater in my temporary 10 gallon tank. The room temperature is lower than yours, around 15-16C average, (about 60F). I have the tank keep constant at 29C (84.2F) when treating a sick Apistogramma. I am sure it will be fine.

 

Just make sure it is adjustable. Not a preset.

 

Thank you everyone!! I will get the 50 watt fluval heater I think. And I can put it horizontal, which is great.the only bad thing is that the dial is is Celsius, so I will have to make sure it's the right temp in Fahrenheit. Now a filter and light.....I'm coming Amazon!

 

The Celsius scale is not that bad...

Water freezes at 0 degrees Celsius and boils at 100 degrees Celsius.

 

The Celsius scale is not that bad...

Water freezes at 0 degrees Celsius and boils at 100 degrees Celsius.

The Celsius scale is fine. However, when it comes to ambient weather conditions, I much prefer Fahrenheit. I know that when the outside temperature is over 100F, it is uncomfortably hot. When the temperature is below 0F, it is uncomfortably cold. Here in northern Illinois, we will usually see a few days a year outside the 0-100F range. In some years, we see both ends of the spectrum.

 

The Celsius scale is not that bad...

Water freezes at 0 degrees Celsius and boils at 100 degrees Celsius.

Metric and Celsius are just so logical and easy to understand I can work in both but it amazes me that the US hasn’t adopted it. I know change is change but the simplicity of 0-100 or a metric everything in 10 just makes it easy.

 

From the U.S Celsius seems so hard. I bet it's not that hard to understand but fahrenheit is so easy for us Americans.

 

Metric and Celsius are just so logical and easy to understand I can work in both but it amazes me that the US hasn’t adopted it. I know change is change but the simplicity of 0-100 or a metric everything in 10 just makes it easy.

Same as what neontetra1, silly American here, but when you're raised to know Fahrenheit your whole life, at least for me, when I see metric and Celsius my brain does not compute. Lol

Would have been nice to have it ingrained to know them all, but where I'm at it's easier for me to just know Fahrenheit. Just not on my priority of things to relearn.

 

Same as what neontetra1, silly American here, but when you're raised to know Fahrenheit your whole life, at least for me, when I see metric and Celsius my brain does not compute. Lol

Would have been nice to have it ingrained to know them all, but where I'm at it's easier for me to just know Fahrenheit. Just not on my priority of things to relearn.

I understand it’s just amazing that the US school system hasn’t implemented it considering 98% of countries and approximately 95% of the world population use metric/Celsius

 

Same as what neontetra1, silly American here, but when you're raised to know Fahrenheit your whole life, at least for me, when I see metric and Celsius my brain does not compute. Lol

Would have been nice to have it ingrained to know them all, but where I'm at it's easier for me to just know Fahrenheit. Just not on my priority of things to relearn.

At minus 40 your brain can relax. At this temperature, Celcius equals Fahrenheit, but it's probably too cold for your brain to realize, anyhow.

 

At minus 40 your brain can relax. At this temperature, Celcius equals Fahrenheit, but it's probably too cold for your brain to realize, anyways.

My body realizes when it is that cold. It wont let me open a door!

 

I'm in south Florida. I use heaters to get the tank a little warmer for breeding and growout but outside of that my tanks sit at 77-78F consistently year round due to the a/c-heat climate control that just about everyone has unless they are miserable and it's broken.

I wouldn't use a heater at all except for that reason though, even at 50f it takes days for the house to cool down and it affect the tanks.

Now if you open windows when it's cold, that's going to knock a tank down quick.