Heater suggestions for a 42g with 20g sump in cold air.

[airbats801]

Whata re you people with cold ambient temps in winter doing for heaters? I've got a 42g cad light with around 20gallons in the sump. I will be adding a lid soon, but curious what kind of power people with similar sized setups are doing for power. I had a 100w heater and it couldnt get it past 68 over a few days. This eheim I have right now is a 150w and it's been in about 5 hours and its up to 70. I'm starting to think I should be considering 300+w of heater. the house was 62 when I got in this evening, but it will get colder when I travel for work, probably 50? I know a lid will help a bit. Looking for opinions. I feel like i'd be better off with a much larger heater

 

[Tamberav]

I would go with two heaters on an inkbird (one of them has two heating plugs pretty sure). Then if one stops working, your tank doesn’t become a complete ice cube since you still have the second heater doing something. Since they have to kick on a lot in your igloo, they will be subject to more wear and failing and you said you travel so even more reason to not use one heater.

Get heaters that have their own thermostats plus the inkbird so you have a fail safe for stuck on as well.

It sounds like you have a 150w and 100w already to start out trying those on the ink-bird being you have them but ya two 150w may be optimal.

You could ofc use a controller if you have one to run two heaters instead.

 

[airbats801]

A inkbird is definitely on the list for down the road. Any recommendations on elements to use with them? I think I read they are designed to be used with non controlled heaters?

 

[Tamberav]

A inkbird is definitely on the list for down the road. Any recommendations on elements to use with them? I think I read they are designed to be used with non controlled heaters?

No, you use controlled heaters on them too. Jaegers or whatever are fine. You just set inkbird below the
Jeagers.

The point is the heater has a thermostat and the inkbird has one so you have two and they shouldn’t both fail at the same time.

 

[Tamberav]

So say you set a heater at 78 and you set the inkbird on at 77 and off at 79.

This puts the heater in primary control but has the inkbird as backup in case the heater fails.

 

[TheBear78]

Some people use the heater as the primary control and other use the Inkbird (or Ranco, D-D etc).
I think using the Inkbird for primary control makes more sense from a redundancy point of view. Also, if you use the WiFi version, the live temperature display (on the App) plus the alarm function can tell you more about what's going on.
In this scenario, set the Inkbird T1 and T2 figures at 77 and 78 (doesn't matter which) and set the thermostats at 79/80.

I had similar problems to you initially with a 300w heater on my 100 gal. One wasn't cutting it, two worked fine but in colder weather I actually had to put my spare in aswell (two on Inkbird, one just standalone). I've since changed to two 350w titanium heaters which seem much more capable than their wattage alone would suggest.

Re. which heater element, any well known brand is fine but check how long they are. I had to Eheim units which were so long I had to lay them down in the sump. The two Ti units fit virtually upright.