Let's talk about heating, is it as simple as just sticking a heater in your reef and hoping for the best? Or is there more to it? What are your options for heating your aquarium and what about if you want more control and monitoring? In the blog below we'll cover all those questions and at the end you'll be a heating expert!
Unfortunately for us here in the UK it isn't warm enough to just keep marine aquariums at the correct temperature based on ambient air temp so we have to employ heaters to warm the water for us. Temperatures on the reef can vary depending on where you are and the time of day but in the marine hobby we like to try and keep our systems as stable as possible which includes the temperature. To that end we generally try to keep our systems at a temperature between 24C to 26C. There are of course exceptions to this and there are cases where hobbyists have kept their systems at higher temps but as with everything in the hobby, the key is to keep things stable which means picking a temperature and maintaining it to within .3 of a degree, ideally. To do this we use heaters, below are three options on how to heat your system.
Glass Heaters.
Glass heaters are probably the most common type of heater used in the hobby and has been directly carried over from the tropical freshwater discipline. The glass heaters have a heating filament within them and are controlled by a thermometer chip housed within the heater itself. You can set the desired temperature you want on this thermometer chip and the heater will heat up to this temperature before then cutting out. This in turn, maintains the temperature of the water at the desired level. The problem with glass heaters is that if the heater becomes exposed to the air whilst hot the glass can crack causing the heater to fail or electrical voltage to stray into the water. In order to avoid this you should make sure that you don't remove the heater from the water whilst hot or place the heater in such a place that there is a risk of it being exposed if the water level drops.
Titanium Heaters.
The alternative to glass heaters are titanium heaters like this one from DD. Unlike the glass heaters there is no risk of these cracking when knocked or exposed to air however they don't have integral thermometer controls so require a controlling unit in order to maintain the temperature in the aquarium. This can easily be done however by pairing a titanium heater with a controller like the DD Dual Temperature Controller. The controller has a temperature probe which you place in your aquarium, an LCD temperature display and a dual plug socket. You can set the desired temperature on the LCD screen, specify the range in which you want to keep the temperature and then you simply plug in your heater to the plug socket. The Temperature probe will measure the temp and if your water is below the range in which you want to keep the water at, the controller will activate the heater. When the temperature exceeds the desired temperature the heater will be turned off. The added benefit of this controller is that you can add a chiller to the plug socket so if the temperature exceeds the desired range the chiller will be activated, bringing the temperature back down into range, perfect for hot summer heat waves.
Smart Reef Temperature Monitoring.
This is very similar to the controller described in the Titanium Heater section however the difference here is that by employing a smart monitoring solution you can monitor your reef temperature from your smart device any time any where. You can even receive text alerts to warn you if the reef is too hot or too cold, potentially indicating an issue with your equipment. This allows you to fault find and fix faulty equipment before it has an impact on your reef inhabitants. The Reef Factory Thermo Control does exactly this, so if you're looking for ultimate control, monitoring and alerts then this could be for you.
All in all, all of the solutions above will work. When I first set up my reef tank I used a glass heater and then upgraded to a controller which I still have and it hasn't missed a beat. If in doubt, come and pay us a visit in store, email or message us on Facebook and we'll be more than happy to help.