Best Heater

[FrankAbagnale]

Though I don't agree with the no heater idea lets keep this friendly. If he chooses to not run a heater and he says to go without a heater he is no more stupid than anyone else who says go with a heater.

Heaters can fail, either fail by staying on which is the worse, or fail by never coming back on. In the BRS videos they replace their heaters every year to make sure nothing bad happens.

Back to the question. You will get a wide range of people who say which are the best but hopefully you will see about three or four companies that pop out from your question and from others asking about heaters. I use Cobalt Neo-Therm.

I've always used a heater. I actually had really bad luck with the Cobalt Neo Therm blowing up in my tank and killing a lot of fish and coral. The company was also really horrible to deal with. I will never purchase anything from them again. With that said, I run two heaters on a controller and switched to Jäger.

 

[masterbuilder]

Been running heaterless for years. No problems at all. Temp is 82-86 daily all year. House temp is 70-80f.

A hundred ways to skin the ol' cat. Glad it works for you but it doesn't for most tanks....86 degrees would not make my stuff happy at all. On the other side, my house gets much colder than yours in the winter and I dont think I could add enough pumps/equipment in the to keep it above 72 degrees, especially at night. Like I said...what works for you may not for others.

I would recommend a heater for most folks (two undersized with apex protection is what I use)

 

[ckozma]

Should i add a heater? My temp stays 82-86f all year because of the equipment.

No, but you should probably run a chiller. 82 is the max your tank should get really and that is pushing it. It is true that you may not need a heater if you keep your house at 78 degrees or so year round but I would never risk it.

 

[MCooper]

So back to the original question. What are some of the best heaters?

 

[Kungpaoshizi]

Having a heater is ok, relying on 1, not so much. Myself I have 2 undersized heaters, so if 1 fails, one can keep the temp from plummeting. If one sticks on, it won't cook the tank.

It's wise to have 2 just in case there's some reason the temp falls. Unless you live in 90 degree weather all year around, it's probably wise.

I myself like the Fluval E series, but recently made a change to Cobalt Accutherm's, pretty decent so far. They have TRIAC switches, and magnetized couplings to shut off properly, so probably won't ever wear out.

It's also wise to put pump guards in place if you have a creature that can float around the tank and not swim. To not do so is clearly negligent.

Cost of construction: 1.00$
Not losing a creature that lives longer than any of us here: Priceless

 

[Colin Chaplin]

Cory, If you are happy and the marine environment is happy, then there's no need for your tank to have a heater you are lucky, but for others it might be advisable for a heater so it all depends where you are, some people might need a chiller like A/C but there again you could use a fan to cool down?.

 

[masterbuilder]

So back to the original question. What are some of the best heaters?

IMHO... for the OP's question in his 29G tank I would say an Eheim Jager around 100W

 

[Cory]

I live in canada.

If you must get a heater, id recommend A two titanium heaters at half the reccomend wattage that cant break and a ranco controller to safeguard overheating.

But id still rather spend that electricity on something else :D

 

[Collinslice]

I use the Finnex titanium heaters. Specifically the ones with the analog controllers.

 

[alyee5]

Any issues with stray voltage with the Finnex titanium heaters? I measure >100 on both my heaters (both were brand new). Plugged in an Eheim heater into the Finnex controller and no stray voltage. Thx

 

[Collinslice]

Any issues with stray voltage with the Finnex titanium heaters? I measure >100 on both my heaters (both were brand new). Plugged in an Eheim heater into the Finnex controller and no stray voltage. Thx

I haven't noticed any adverse effects yet, but I'll definitely keep that in mind if an issue pops up. Thanks.