Guide to Aquarium Heaters: 5 Tips for Keeping Your Fish Warm and Toasty

My aquarium heater recently failed, so I have to get a new one. Let’s talk about how to choose an aquarium heater, what to do if they break, and which brands are my favorites.

🛒 MATERIALS I USED
(As an Amazon Associate, I may earn commissions from the links below. Also, I work for Aquarium Co-Op but do not receive commissions from their links.)

📚 RESOURCES
▶ Temperature controller tutorial: blah

🦐 EXTRAS

ATTRIBUTION

#girltalksfish #aquarium #fishtank

0:00 Does my fish need an aquarium heater?
0:38 Tip #1: heater size
1:25 Tip #2: number of heaters
2:26 Tip #3: heater features
3:16 Tip #4: heater installation
5:02 Tip #5: expect your heater to fail
7:34 My favorite aquarium heaters

[GirlTalksFish]

*What's your favorite aquarium heater that I should try next?*

[masoompatel]

I had an old Tetra heater that I had in storage for 8 years that didn’t work when I took it back out. I had received a free Top Fin heater that I decided to use with out testing it. The next morning I found that my fish jumped out and the water was over 90F when I had it set to 77F. Safe to say you should always test your heaters before using them with fish. I’d recommend avoiding used ones and keeping a spare as back up.

[markhunter]

Excellent advice. My heaters are getting quite old, so you have scared 😱 me into going out to purchase a couple of spares 👌

[girlmeetspup]

okay why is this PERFECT timing? your videos are ALWAYS perfect timing!! my 10-30 gallon 100w Tetra heater is not heating up my 20 gallons to 78, it's staying at 60 and so I think I need a new one! thank you so much for the video!!

[bullwinkle]

Just discovered you. You presented useful info in a short video. Actually, I wish it had been longer as I enjoyed the content and your delivery. Keep up the good work.

[penngrey]

Good timing on your aquarium heater video. It is 10° here this morning. Yay..

[scuds]

Thanks for the great advice! My current heater is a no-name one that’s a couple years old. Think I’m going to get a Fluval and a controller to replace it. I like their products.

[wallacelo]

i just bought my first aquarium and your videos are great for learning! Thank you <3

[TazawaTanks]

I was laughing when the fish crossed the frame and apologized. I was mostly laughing at the thought of you editing that sequence. 😄

[andrewtomkins]

Perhaps a future video on temperate fish would be good? There are several options and as you’ve highlighted, heaters don’t come without risk! Thanks for the great videos :)

[ALAPINO]

Great tips, Irene!

I feel heaters have gotten more feature rich but less reliable. Two is one and one is none: Redundancy is key. I keep other animals, reptiles mainly, and I check them daily with an IR temp gun: Everything get checked because I'm already doing the rounds.

His theory about failure mode being because of cycling is accurate. Heat is the enemy of electrical devices, and thermal cycling kills thermal switches, even nicer relay activated systems have designed number of reliable cycles.

[bothetetrabreeder]

Thanks for the tips. Luckily I have never had a heater failure because I know how important it is to choose a good quality
heater to keep tropical fish in the winter. And I have always been very consistent in buying from the same reliable brand over the years.

[KaneWrestlingFan]

I'm thankful that being in south Florida I don't have much use for a heater except for when it can get kinda cold in December-February. Just got my tank going with fish in it as of 2 months ago and while it'll be a while yet before it'd get cold enough that I can't just rely on keeping the room temp at 80 I do want to have a reliable heater ready for when it does. Right now I have my sights set on Aquarium Co-ops heater because it does look promising and obviously could go a long ways with the minimal use.

[ansleybleu]

Thank you! How long should you expect a heater to last? 1-3 years?

[johnshanks]

Thanks for the informative video can i ask do heater elements glo bright red when heating water up especially notice thus when aquarium light is of

[paulanoakes]

A few years ago I had a 2 1/2 gal with 2 mystery snails that I was going to do a water change & when I put my hand in water was hot. Temp was close to 90. I grabbed my snails and put them in my 10 gal and they survived. Heater was a nano fixed temp one, forgot the brand. I now have 4 tanks and every time I go into the room I check the thermostat in tanks. Good to have a spare handy for sure.

[dnb]

I live in Breckenridge, CO and on New Years week we had a huge snow storm and our heat went out for 8 days 🙄 luckily I had an extra old tank so I put all my fish in it and a small 50w heater. All my fish survived luckily!!

[johnwood]

I have gotten lucky with the last two heaters I bought owner of LFS who buys my fish had some really great heaters with remote control temp setting that he down sized his tanks and I got super cheap.$10 and $20. I don’t have the Co-Op where I live in NY but I do have a really good LFS!

[marvinnguyen-colorado]

I'm in Colorado, too. But my 4 years old preset heater never fails. I believe preset heater have disadvantages of not able to change the temp but they tends to last longer. The more mechanical parts you have in an equipment, the more chance it will fails.

[StanLeeGhost]

eheim heaters are pretty good have one in my 75g and 65g. there was a time where i drained too much water and forgot to turn off the heater so it got burnt a bit but still works great! I also have some cheap heaters on my smaller tanks from amazon they're a year old and lucky haven't had any problems with them yet.