Struggling to find a small heater.

[Andamaite]

Current tank is a 5.5gl standard glass aquarium. I will likely upgrade in the future (Eyeballing an Aquatop 24gl cube kit), but for now that's the space I have to work with. I am struggling to find a heater with decent reviews that will fit into the tank with the rockwork as it sits. It has not needed a heater all summer, but as the house temps start to get a little cooler over the winter I suspect overnights will need a little help.

The Eheim Jager I was looking at seems to be around 14" long, no matter the wattage, and that's too large/too visible for a tank this small. Nicrew has a few that look half-decent, with mixed reviews on the accuracy of the digital readout, but I plan on getting an inkbird anyway.

Are there any current recommendations for smaller format heaters that aren't likely to nuke my whole tank on a bad day, or will having the inkbird as backup (and a gfci) pretty much spare me from cooked corals?

 

[exnisstech]

Maybe the take a look at the Hyger mini? I ran a different small hyger in my 8g as my it is worked fine but I only had the tank running for a year.

 

[ScottJ]

A heater controller like an Inkbird will protect the tank. Set the heater thermostat a few degrees higher than your intended temp. Set the Inkbird to the temp you want. The Inkbird will cycle the heater on and off. The probe in the Inkbird is nice and small, so it will be fine in a small tank. Also, the Inkbird probe should go as upstream to the heater as possible.

I would get the smallest heater I could WITH an adjustable thermostat, and the Inkbird at the same time. Then you will be good to go

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I use the nicrew plastic heater and the aqueon plastic heater, they are both about half the length of the eheim heaters. I have one of each and they both work well.