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Re: Heartbroken
On Sat, 23 Sep 2000, Peter wrote:
> This depends on what happened to the heater. I'v heard of the thermostat
> breaking and thus the heater being stuck ON permanently and cooking the
> fish.
>
> In this case having two heaters will not help.
Actually, it WILL help. If the two heaters are half the wattage of the
one big heater, what will happen is that the heater stuck on will be
continuously heating the water, but at HALF the power of the BIG heater
that would have been stuck on. The other heater, meanwhile, is now OFF if
the temp gets above its preset.
If you choose heater wattage wisely (just enough to keep the tank at the
right temperature in the coldest part of the winter), you may not even
notice the effect of one continuous heater unless it's the middle of
summer, in which case it's a few degrees warmer. Heck, some of us do this
deliberately with cable heaters to avoid paying for an expensive
controller.
- Erik
--
Erik Olson
erik at thekrib dot com