[nitewolf]

Hello all. I have started a 55 gallon freshwater tank, and it's been a couple of days since I started the cycle, but I've had the heater cranked to max in there and the water temp keeps dropping instead of increasing. I know it takes time to heat that volume of water, but what could be causing the water to get colder instead of heating up? Thank you

 

[nitewolf]

Tetra 200 watt heater. I grabbed the heater and it's cold. Doesn't appear to be kicking on so checked the plug seems fine, but could be the heater went, even though I just bought this setup from someone over this past weekend, plus it was working fine the last day and a half kicking on and off

 

[nitewolf]

Meant to add - is the heater cycling on and off? Can you see "heat waves" directly around the heater when it is showing (ie light, indicator, etc) that it is "on"? Where is the heater located in the tank? Where is the thermometer in relation to the heater? What sort of water circulation do you have in the tank? What is the temperature reading? What is the room temperature?
In a tank the length of a 55, I prefer using two heaters - both of sufficient wattage. If you have just the one heater it may not be able to keep up with the damands of the tank even if it is of sufficient wattage. Location plays into this as well as the circulation of the water.

Not sure of what heat waves are. The thermometer was on the opposite side of the tank from the heater. I moved it to the same side as the heater now. I'm using a dual filter filtration system, and the heater is located right beside the filter.

 

[nitewolf]

After doing a little more looking into it I found the plug keeps unresting itself from the outlet, but I'm thinking I'll buy a second heater and run a 6 plug surge protector to insure the equipment stays plugged in this time.