Heater for 16 gallon aquarium? 50w or 300w?

Aly

Hello,
I currently have a 55 gallon Discus tank and just had a plague of ick that has been treated and is now gone. I lost four of my fish (nothing big-cories and loaches) after I brought home 5 cardinal tetras from a large lfs I normally do not go to. I have since found out it has central filtration. So now I have decided I need a quarantine tank. I would get the aqueon 16 gallon kit from Petsmart. It comes with a 50 watt heater but I have a 300 watt that couldn't reach the 86 degrees needed in my 55. Is a 50 watt enough for a hospital/qt tank that needs to reach higher temps? Is a 300 watt too much or will it work? Does anyone have experience with this kit?
Oh, I was going to purchase a large sponge filter to add to the tank- will this and the filter it comes with be okay? I am looking to purchasing a nicer, larger hob filter later.

Thanks!!!!

The kit: http://www.petsmart.com/product/inde...#RatingsDetail

zof

I would think the 50 watt should work for it, of course I have a 150watt in my 20 right now but its probably a tad over kill, I would be a little afraid to but a 300 watt in a 16 gallon tank as it may cause the temps to fluctuate to quickly. I know alot of people here recommend with 55 gallon and up you have two heaters in the tank, one at each end as it is a pretty big area to cover with just 1 heater plus if one ever dies you have a back up heater. I think the general range is suppose to be something like 4-6 watts per gallon for heaters.

Tyyrlym

Unless you're making soup the 50W should be fine. Now personally I'd use a 100W in that size tank but it really depends on how cold you keep your house and how cold you get in the winter. Being able to reach higher temps is good for a QT but most heaters don't run 24/7 anyways. A 50 or 100W should be able to get your tank as warm as you want it. A 300 is not only overkill but dangerous. It'll take time for a 50 or 100W to warm up your tank, a 300W can do it very quickly. If the heater ever breaks (and I have had one that did) it could get stuck on. With only 16 gallons of water and 300W of heating that thing will get far too hot very quickly. Also, just in normal day to day running you're going to go through a lot more on/off cycles than a smaller heater. Consequently you're going to wear it out much faster.

Go with the 50W but if you absolutely have to have more heating go to a 75 or 100 but not the 300. That's just too much.

Aly

SOOOOO I want to the store to buy my 16 gallon kit about twenty minutes before store closing- they didn't have the stand for it so I decided to wait on that ans postpone setting it up until I could find one. I almost make it out of the store when I see a beautiful 26 gallon bowfront on a matching black wood stand for 116 dollars- not including the hood or lamp- only a glass canopy. I return my 16 gallon for the 26 gallon kit and ask for one of the stands. The only two are on display and you must buy the tank, too. Those are the only two stand for a smaller bow front. I cancel my 26 gallon kit and get the 26 with the stand for 116. (cheaper than the kit that doesn't have a stand) I was planning on replacing the heater and filter of the kit anyway, so I go and choose a nicer HOB filter with 50 gallon capacity and I decide to buy the heater elsewhere for cheaper. Then ask the clueless fish salesperson if she could help me find a hood that fits a 26 gallon- just the light part since it came with a canopy. But, they don't carry hoods for that tank. Then she goes on to tell me that a 50 gallon filter would overfilter(WHAT?) an almost 30 gallon tank!??? I told her that I had a filter meant for 100 gallons (fluval 405) on my 55g and that my fish were fine. (two mins till store closing) She says I am wasting money because too much water will be going through the filter and that I will have to replace the filter media very often. Does that even make sense??? I have no idea how or why but I left with the 26 gallon kit, and nothing else. I was the last costumer to leave the store. What happened to the cheaper 16 gallon that I left because I wanted a stand!!!?????? I going to see what tank/stand and everything else combos they have at my lfs tomorrow and will probably end up returning the 26g kit to a different pet store location so they don't think I am 110% indecisive.

TankFishMan

Hi I just recently bought a 300 Watt submersible water heater off of Ebay that says it is good for up to 90 gallon fish tanks. Now when I think about how big it looks I am worried that I am going to fry my fish.. My question is, will it be alright to use this water heater on my 30 gallon fish tank or will it kill my fish? Here is a link to the actual heater I bought off of Ebay.


http://cgi.ebay.com/300-WATT-Submers...45662196823444

Tyyrlym

No, it doesn't really make a lot of sense. You can't over filter the water. What you can do is create too much flow in the tank. Ignore the stated gallonage ratings they give you on filters and such. Pay attention to how many gph (gallons per hour) it flows. You're typically going to want something between 5 and 10 tank volumes per hour with a HOB. In your case that's between 130 and 260 gallons per hour. Personally I'd split the difference and say something in the 200 gph range will be spot on. As for filter media the only one that really "wears out," is carbon which isn't really that useful anyways unless you're trying to remove tannins or medications. Otherwise you're just wasting your money on it. And even if you are running it the rate it is deactivated is proportional to the pollutant concentration in the water and the size of your tank not the filter's flow.

As for the size, personally I'd keep the 26 gallon. Believe me, bigger is better (easier to take care of) and a couple months after buying the 16 you'll be saying, "Wow, wish I'd kept the 26."

juliocromus

For a heater 5 watts per gallon is fine

Tyyrlym

Actually I'd say 5 watts per gallon is the top and it's hardly that simple. Smaller tanks with a higher ratio of surface area to mass need more heating than larger tanks with a correspondingly lower surface area to mass ratio. How cool do you keep your house? If you set things at 76 degrees then you don't need much of a heater to bump the tank up to 78. If you keep the house at 70 you'll need a lot more heater. If in the winter your house gets down into the 60's you'll need a BIG heater. Finally is the aquarium glass or acrylic. Acrylic is a better insulator than glass and you can use a smaller heater in an acrylic tank.

3 to 5 watts is a good range to start looking in but there are a lot of factors going into the choice and bigger is definitely not better when it comes to a heater.

Oldman47

The standard approach is to use about m5 watts per gallon in a reasonable setting. An ultra cold room will require more and summer room temperatures will of course require less heat3. For a 16 gallon tank, a typical "best" value for the heater would be a 75 watt heater.

FreshwataFish

I was wondering if a 100w heater would work in a 37g.